Wandering Between Two Worlds
by Shadow Master
Summary: BtVS/Naruto/Ranma/Sailor Moon In this sequel to 'A Distant Relation' Team Anko is has arrived in Sunnydale and they better get used to the wierdness quick because the Hellmouth isn't going to give them time to ease into things.
1. Chapter 1

"Wandering Between Two Worlds" by Shadow Master aka Ryley Breen

email: ryley[underscore]breen[at]hotmail[dot]com

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and associated companies. The characters Lotion and Dio belong to the fanfic author 3D Master. I make no money off of this whatsoever. I write only for my own amusement and for those that enjoy reading my work. So any of you corporate lawyers who work for the companies that own these shows please put down your phones. Any money you might be able to sue me for wouldn't even be enough to get you a new suit.

Note: Well it's finally here! The sequel you've all been waiting for. I know I said that I would wait until I finished off a few more of my in progress fanfics before starting it but after watching the latest "Naruto Shippuuden" episodes my muse started acting like Willow on a sugar rush. So I figure go with the flow and hope for the best.

Note 2: As I have stated in previous fanfics I will try to stay as close to canon as I can for the shows involved but if a piece of canon gets in the way of the story I want to tell consider it tossed over my shoulder or tweaked so that it will work. So those of you that consider it heresy or something to deviate even the slightest from canon should probably walk away from this fanfic right now. Also while I welcome ideas any flaming or negative criticism will be cheerfully ignored. This is my story and I will write it the way I want to write it. I will take ideas that I think will make it better but if you don't like the way I'm doing things no one is forcing you to read it.

Now that that part is out of the way someone cue the BtVS intro music for Season 3…

_Wandering Between Two Worlds_

_**Approaching the Front Gate of Sunnydale High School, Mid-Afternoon, Willow's P.O.V**_

"Well that was a great big waste of time!" Buffy complained as they made their way back to the library. "Three hours of waiting and nothing happened!"

"While I will admit to some confusion as to the lack of any manifestation in regards to the portal, better to be safe than sorry," Giles said, sounding genuinely befuddled at the fact that nothing happened during their stakeout of a cave on the outskirts of Sunnydale. "Elcat'net demons are quite dangerous and can reproduce with speed, given the right environment. I trust that you recall the picture that I showed you? That is how large they would have become if left to themselves for even a week."

"Yuck! Thanks for bringing back that mental Polaroid!" Buffy exclaimed while her face scrunched up in disgust as her mind brought the image of a mature Elcat'net demon to the forefront.

She couldn't help but show her disgust as well, since neither the demon's appearance or what it did with its… appendages filled her with the warm fuzzies, as Xander would say. While she had only read a little of the description of the book Giles had put before her, it had been enough to actually make her push the book away. A rare thing, considering how much she loved to learn new things, but in her opinion this was one of the rare times that something was better left unknown.

It had been mid-morning when they were all waiting for Xander to get back from Konoha when Giles had received a phone call. She hadn't caught all of it since her mind was firmly on seeing her best friend again but whoever the Watcher had spoken with had caused the British man to go from skeptical to worried in less than five minutes. It had only been a minute after the phone conversation had ended that the learned man had divulged the nature of what he'd learned. Apparently an anonymous source had called saying that it'd caught word of a dimensional disturbance occurring on the outskirts of town. Giles had initially considered it nothing more than a prank call but, as the anonymous source gave more and more accurate information, indicating they knew what they were talking about, the librarian gradually took things more seriously. When Buffy had finally put him on the spot about what the big bad was, G-Man actually went over to the nearest bookshelf, took a single book and, after flipping through the pages a bit, put the answer on the table for all to see. The Slayer had recoiled right away after seeing the drawing of the demon but she had lasted until she'd finished the first page before pushing the book away. Elcat'net demons were most definitely not of the good so as one they'd gathered the necessary weapons and left for the cave the source had designated.

It hadn't taken them long to get there and, once they'd arrived, Giles had laid out the game plan for dealing with the icky demon. She and Buffy were to keep their distance and attack it with the crossbows they'd been given since females were the preferred prey of this species of demon. When Buffy asked what Giles had meant by preferred, she'd immediately rushed the Slayer to their sniper positions since her mind had come up with a very mentally scarring possibility of what the demon did to men. It took the blonde a few minutes to get the same image and, like her, the Summers girl immediately tried to scrub the knowledge from her mind.

With Giles hiding behind a boulder and the rest of them up on a ledge a good thirty feet away from where the portal was due to open, they waited for the threat to emerge. After the first hour Buffy began to fidget a bit, since it went against her Slayer nature to remain still for so long, but a look saying 'be patient' was enough to keep the restlessness under control. After the second hour, though, with nothing to show for their patience but a Slayer clinging to her last shred of patience and a Watcher who looked like he was mentally reviewing every relevant book in his head, the stakeout almost ended. The only thing that kept it going for the final hour was Giles bribing Buffy with a week off from training in the library and reducing patrols to three times in the coming week. With the temptation of more time to be teenage Buffy rather than Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the girl who was her friend settled down and agreed to wait another hour.

She lasted about forty-five minutes.

Commendable, all things considered.

With nothing to show for their efforts, though, Giles intended to go through his books again just in case there was some fact he'd overlooked. Personally she thought it was a simple case of the anonymous tipster being a phony who probably thought it was funny to send the Slayer and her Watcher out on a wild goose chase. Still, she knew that he wouldn't be happy until he'd looked through every book he had in an effort to determine the reason for the lack of anything at the cave.

Plus 'better safe than sorry' was not just sound advice in Sunnydale, it was a bit of wisdom essential to survival.

A good chance to follow that kernel of sound advice came when they entered the school courtyard on their way to the front entrance of the school. Lying on the ground were three lengths of steel cable that looked to be about half an inch thick and she knew for a fact that they hadn't been there prior to them leaving for the cave. When she wondered where they could have come from, she recalled that Xander was due back today and that he was a ninja. Could this have been a trap for him? Was he alright? Where was he now? Breaking into a run, she made for the library since that'd be where she'd bet Xander would go after successfully defeating his attackers. She was peripherally aware of both Giles and Buffy running after her yelling questions at her while she made her way to the library, hoping beyond hope that she'd find her best friend there waiting impatiently for them while nursing a Twinkie or two.

It was as she reached the final stretch of hallway that led to the library that she began to hear loud voices coming from her destination and only one of them did she recognize as Xander's. Had he brought friends with him from Konoha? Possible, but then why was he yelling or possibly arguing with them? Deciding that there was only one way to find out, she closed the distance between herself and the library doors before pushing them open so that she could enter.

The sight that greeted her was almost funny if it wasn't for the fact that two well-endowed young women looked like they wanted to jump Xander's bones right there while two others looked like they'd kill the first pair if they tried. There were only two adults in the room and, rather than trying to get the teenage girls to calm down, they looked like they were enjoying the entertainment.

"Bitch Girl and Slut Girl need to get out of Lu Xion and Pu Fium's way!" spoke a girl with brown hair done up in Chinese style.

"Not a chance, Odango-atama!" a girl with red blade marks on each cheek barked out angrily. "It'll take more than some half-assed story to make us turn Wannabe over to you!"

"You no leave future husband by choice, we make you leave!" yelled the girl with the black hair, standing next to the one who'd first spoken.

Of course she wasn't focused on the girls anymore, but rather what had just been said.

"FUTURE HUSBAND!" she exclaimed, instantly getting the attention of everyone in the room and causing both Buffy as well as Giles to gape as they came through the door.

"Um…hi, Willow. …I'm back!" Xander said, looking like he wasn't quite sure how to handle the situation.

"You better have a damn good explanation for this, **mister!**" she declared as her face slammed into what her best friend had called her 'Resolve Face'.

She would get answers out of him even if she had to threaten to pull out every embarrassing story she knew about him.

_**Sunnydale High School Library, Ten Minutes Later, Xander's P.O.V**_

_This isn't going to be pretty, but better to get everything out of the way now then wait until later._ He thought as he looked at the people gathered around the central library table.

"Well, as you guys know, I left Sunnydale to lay my mom to rest and tie up whatever loose ends she might have left behind," he said, beginning his retelling of his adventure overseas. "It was only a little after I got out of civilization that I settled into the most crap covered rest stop in the **world**! I swear I would have kept going until I found something better but I was so beat and didn't think there would be anything better so I endured the night and left at sunrise. It was then that something really weird happened.

"Two people, a guy my age and another almost G-Man's age came running out of the forest like the devil himself was running after them. Considering it was a group of women looking to skin someone alive, I can't say I blame them," he said, remembering his first encounter with the warrior women. "By the time they showed up, though, both of the guys had already jumped into the ocean trying to swim away. Deo and her bunch asked me where their targets went but, since I just knew what the duo looked like and not their names, I said I didn't know where they went. Two seconds later one of them spotted this Ranma swimming away and their leader ordered half of them to kill me for lying."

"WHAT? They were going to kill you just for lying?" Buffy exclaimed before looking at all three Amazon women like she was thinking about how to take them down.

"He was obstructing an Amazon on a mission of honor." Deo explained, sounding like she didn't feel she had to justify anything.

"What mission could be so important that you'd kill Xander over it?" Willow asked, sounding like her mood wasn't much better than Buffy's at the moment.

"Ranma defeated our sister Amazon Xian Pu. Amazon law states that if a woman from outside of the tribe defeats one of the tribe, then that woman is honor bound to pursue that outsider and kill her at all cost." Deo explained with a face that said she wouldn't tolerate anyone badmouthing Amazon law. "For lying to us and delaying the restoration of our sister's honor, death was being lenient with him."

_Woman? I'm pretty sure that both of the people that jumped off the cliff were guys._ He thought as he recalled the two runners in question. _I suppose he could've been a girl but she'd have to have a pretty flat chest._

Still he decided it'd be best to keep the explanation going rather than getting bogged down on something that wasn't really important.

"ANYway, we fought and I managed to beat them but, according to them, that means I'm engaged to these two," he said before something occurred to him. "Doesn't that mean that you're engaged to me also?"

"Under normal circumstances it would, handsome," Deo replied, looking like she was entertaining such thoughts herself before sighing. "However as I am already married, albeit to a spineless weakling, and my daughter was among those you defeated, it was decided that I would be exempt from the obligation to marry you. It's a pity since you make that string bean husband of mine look downright pathetic."

"Mother!" Lu Xion exclaimed in defense of her father.

"Yes, Little One." Deo said as an apology to her daughter.

"And the other one? The blonde?" he asked, since he didn't see the last of his opponents from that day.

"She was judged unfit to be your wife," Deo said with anger as well as contempt for her fellow Amazon. "Once the village elders learned all there was to know about our fight, they had initially decided to hold a tournament between my daughter, Pu Fium and Olay to decide who would be your wife. It was, after all, unheard of for one man from outside of the tribe to defeat four of our warriors at once. By the time that the tournament was half over, it was clear that the victor would be either Lu Xion or Pu Fium as Olay was lacking in certain areas.

"Instead of accepting her loss with honor, Olay attempted to create a performance enhancer using a forbidden formula that existed only in our village's council archives." Deo was getting angrier by the moment at her fellow Amazon's dishonorable actions, "She almost succeeded in her foul scheme but forgot to remember the flaw in the enhancer and why it was forbidden in the first place. Suffice it to say that she will not shame the Chinese Amazon Tribe any longer."

"If you guys held a tournament then shouldn't there be only one winner?" Anko-sensei asked from her position leaning up against the card catalogue.

"Normally that would be the case but after seven days straight where no clear winner could be determined between my daughter and Pu Fium, the village elders decided that they would both be the future wives of Uchiha Alexander." Deo replied, having cooled down a bit now that Olay wasn't the topic of conversation anymore. "While news from the shinobi region of the world isn't easy to come by, it wasn't hard to learn the current state of the Uchiha Clan. It seemed fitting that he gain two wives rather than just one to aid in the recovery his family."

"But he didn't know about your law when he beat you!" Ayeka pointed out, obviously not liking what she was hearing, "Doesn't that mean something!"

"Not at all. The law simply says 'if a man from outside of the tribe defeats a woman of the tribe in combat, then the woman must marry the man'." Deo said with a smile that made it clear she believed she was in the superior position, "It doesn't say anything about the man needing to be aware of the law before he defeats one of our warriors."

"That's crazy!" Buffy exclaimed in disbelief at the Amazon's law.

"Actually, Buffy, it is not all that uncommon for a culture that places such importance on the role of warrior to conceive of various ways to take in 'new blood', as it were." Giles said from his place by the door to his office. "While I do not approve of Xander being forced to do anything he does not wish to do, I can understand their point of view well enough."

Giles was ever the voice of reason in situations like this but that didn't change how he felt right at that moment.

"Then why don't we hear what the head of the Uchiha clan has to say?" Deo asked rhetorically with a confident smile on his face, "It does concern him most of all."

"Finally! I thought you were all going to make my choices for me," he said, voicing his displeasure at people talking like he wasn't there. "As for this whole Amazon law thing, you can forget it. I'm both an American and a citizen of Konoha. Neither of those places force people to get married to someone they don't want to. I'm sorry about the whole honor and obligation bit but I'm not marrying someone I don't know, much less love."

He could see that this hurt both Lu Xion and Pu Fium (or Lotion and Perfume as he decided he'd call them from now on), since they both looked like they'd been rejected by the guy they'd given their confession letters to but it was better this way. He could see that they were complete hotties in terms of looks but he knew nothing about them aside from the fact that they could fight and were from some Chinese Amazon village. That was not enough to base a friendship on, much less holy matrimony, and it'd be even crueler to the girls to stick them in a marriage where their husband doesn't love them. They'd get over it and he wouldn't have to worry about them following him around trying to jump his bones or drag him own the isle of a church or whatever their marriage ceremony was like.

"So you're saying that if you got to know them and eventually came to love them, then you'll consent to marrying my daughter and Perfume?" Deo asked, using the basic logic of his statement to her advantage.

"Well…um…" he replied, unsure of how to reply to that.

It was true that it was possible that he might fall for them if he got to know them but did he really want to give them hope that they might actually pull it off?

"Then it's settled. Lotion? Perfume? Let's go and find ourselves a place to live in this town," Deo said as she began to walk towards the exit. "You will be seeing us again, future son-in-law. Count on it!"

A little stunned her proclamation, he didn't say a thing as the three Amazons sashayed out of the library with both Lotion and Perfume putting a little something extra in the sway of their hips. He had to admit that the sight was oddly… stimulating and for a moment made him wonder if he should at least give them a chance.

Just to be friends, of course.

"Xander-sama." Came Ayeka's voice with a warning tone that instantly snapped him out of his appreciation.

Turning to his right he saw Mishima Ayeka looking at him with a dangerous glint in her eyes and Inuzuka Hana looking like she was waiting for him to do one more thing wrong before pounding his face into the ground. Obviously his two teammates did not approve of the fact that he'd been interested in the Amazons, or more precisely a certain part of the Amazon body.

_Damn my teenage hormones!_ He thought as his mind scrambled to think of a way out of his current predicament.

_**Giles' Office, Twenty Minutes Later, Anko's P.O.V**_

"You guys are a pretty close, aren't ya?" Anko asked before taking a sip of the tea that Mr. Giles had offered her.

Her team and Xander's friends had left a couple of minutes ago to go on a tour of the High School, both to get to know the area as well as each other. After all, Xander was the only person who knew both his Sunnydale friends and Team Anko. If both sides were to work together on the Hellmouth, they'd need to trust one another and the best way to do that would be to spend time with one another. It was true that, officially, they had been told to keep their relationship with the Slayer and her Watcher purely professional but she'd gotten the impression that Hokage-sama would overlook any violations of this order so long as it didn't stir up trouble. Considering how close Xander was with the Slayer and the others, she felt it was a safe bet that it'd only take a little bit of prodding to keep things from going down the crapper on her.

"Indeed. It has been two years since we first met each other," Mr. Giles said as he sat down with his own cup of tea. "In that time we've gone from being mere acquaintances to close friends."

_He's keeping his answers short and to the point. _She thought with a mental grin, _He might trust Xander-kun at the moment but is only willing to be polite to the rest of us for now._

That showed that he cared about the teenagers and wouldn't do anything to put them in danger. It was definitely better than what she'd read back in Konoha about the Watcher's Council and what they could expect from one of their agents. All the reports she'd read had them being a bunch of old men or women who treated their Slayer's like tools and that reminded her too much of the old hag and four eyes on the village council. Either the people who'd written the reports had the bad luck of encountering the worst of the lot or she'd lucked out and would be working with one that she'd have an easy time getting along with. Still, it'd be best to get the bothersome part of laying down some ground rules as ordered by Hokage-sama under pressure from the old fossils on the Council.

"Good, because you're probably going to need that friendship from here on out," she said, already getting a foul taste in her mouth at what she was about to say.

"What do you mean?" Mr. Giles asked with genuine inquisitiveness.

"I assume you've received some sort of communication from your bosses about the change in the status quo around here?" she asked, deciding to get a better idea of what he knew before she revealed what she knew.

"Yes. I received a phone call from the Council stating that Konoha was to be given jurisdiction over the Hellmouth," Mr. Giles replied, his gaze focusing on the cup of tea in his hands. "I was also told though to ensure that the Council remained involved in all major decisions regarding threats on the Hellmouth."

_In other words they fell for the lie that Uchiha Jun'ko was assigned to the Hellmouth before they arrived. _She thought glad that the story had been swallowed. _However it doesn't sound like they're willing to give Konoha total control, either._

This was to be expected.

While the Watcher's Council might not have much say at the moment given the terms between them and the Hidden Villages, it'd only hurt their image if they gave up **the** supernatural hotspot on the planet without a fight. The majority of the reports she'd read portrayed them as a bunch of pompous old men and women who liked to believe that they were the elite when it came to combating the hostile supernatural elements. Laughable when you consider how much they relied on the Slayer and how limited their human teams were elsewhere in the world. A human with the right weapons and training might be able to handle a decent group of vampires or a small group of the more dangerous breeds of demon but shinobi were two levels above them at least. Still, she knew there had to be a reason why the hidden villages bothered to bargain with those old farts in the first place rather than just walking right over them.

So, for the time being, she'd play nice and not rock the boat… too much.

"Okay, then. Now, let me lay down a few rules. You'll probably get the more wordy version mailed to you by the end of the week," she said as she momentarily losing her informal attitude. "These are non-negotiable and you **will** abide by them.

"First rule is neither you nor your Slayer are to make any attempt to learn our techniques. Seeing us use them in a fight is one thing but spying on us while we're training is another," she said in a no nonsense tone of voice. "If you walk in on us by accident, we'll judge it on a case by case basis. However if we find any notes, any recordings or any signs of our techniques that are more than an accidental glance could explain, there will be consequences. Understand?"

"Of course! I would never consider taking such action." Mr. Giles replied, sounding offended at the idea of spying.

"Even if you were given a direct order by your superiors in the Watcher's Council?" she asked, pointing out a situation where he would have no choice.

"If such an order was made, I would protest citing a violation of the treaty between our respective organizations and insist on a full meeting of the governing members of the Council," Mr. Giles replied resolutely. "I know there are enough moderates there to block anything some of the more… ambitious members might try to do."

"Good. The second rule is that we won't officially be getting involved in non-mission situations or using our abilities. Hokage-sama wishes to keep our presence here as low profile as possible to keep the other hidden villages from becoming interested in this town," she said, keeping her professional tone. "While that'll be difficult considering how flashy some of our techniques are, it'll be good practice for my team to hone their stealth kill skills."

She could see that the man was a little uneasy about what 'stealth kill skills' might imply and she wasn't about to restrain the Brit's imagination any. Not only was it amusing to watch but it would also help give him incentive not to break any of the rules.

"Officially the last rule is that Team Anko is to keep its relationship with your group as professional as possible and not interact outside of a mission based environment." she stated, unable to keep her dislike of this last rule.

"And unofficially?" Mr. Giles asked, obviously catching the tone in her voice.

"Unofficially Hokage-sama has stated that she'll allow our two groups to hang out with each other like friends so long as it doesn't interfere with the mission or violate the first two rules," she replied with a sneaky smile. "She didn't think that I'd be able to keep Xander hanging out with his friends anyway and I agree with her."

"I think we can follow those rules without much difficulty." Mr. Giles said in agreement before taking another sip of tea.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" she asked rhetorically before answering her own question. "I gotta warn you, though, that Hana and Ayeka can be a real handful sometimes. I'd advise you to hide your booze sooner rather than later. Hana tends to knock-em back pretty thoroughly after a bad day."

"I'll be sure to remember that," replied the Brit looking like he was making a mental list of what he'd be hiding first.

Smart man.

"Now how about you tell me about some of the things my team might face in Sunnydale." she said, preparing to take in everything the older man has to say.

The next hour or so proved to most informative with regards to the craziness involved in living on a Hellmouth.

_**The Streets of Sunnydale, Two and a Half Hours Later, Hana's P.O.V**_

_I guess it's a good thing that my girls aren't all that different from normal pets,_ Hana thought as she walked behind the others, letting her dogs take up the rear. _Otherwise I'd have to beat the crap out of the idiots from the local pound when they came to take them away from me._

Still, if what Wannabe told her about this town was right, then dog-catchers wouldn't even rate as annoyances when compared to some of the demons out there. The place was weirdness central and anything could happen if you stuck around long enough. There were vampires, witches that could do things similar to jutsu, possessions and more varieties of demons than there were colors in a rainbow. It's be safe to say that she wouldn't get bored easily in this town but it sounded like it'd be a pain in the ass killing some of these demons since no two species of demon could be killed the same way.

_Still, if Slayer-girl is right, then making them a head shorter tends to do the job more often than not._ She thought as they approached some sort of warehouse club.

"And this is The Bronze. It's pretty much the only place in town where people our age can go to hang out and have fun," Wannabe said as they got close enough for her to read the sign above the door. "Too bad that also makes it the number one hunting ground for vamps. There are so many people in here at night it's easy for the fang faces to grab one or two people without anyone being the wiser."

"You mean no one catches on?" Ayeka asked, sounding a little surprised.

"You'll find that unless it comes right up and growls in their faces, Sunnydale pretty much wraps themselves in a blanket of denial." Replied the girl named Willow with a disappointed tone. "The fact that most people who get growled in the face turn into dinner for whatever did the growling means there's not much chance anyone else will be told the truth."

Made sense.

It was like the stores of bijū back home. Everyone had heard stories about the massive monsters but only a few people had really seen the beasts. Of those that had seen the tailed beasts firsthand, only a small percentage actually managed to live long enough to tell the others the terror-filled story. If it was the same for normal people and demons then is was no wonder that few people lived after having the truth shoved in their faces.

"And don't expect handshakes or medals for every demon you kill," said the Slayer with annoyed acceptance. "Most of the time they take off the moment you take the demon's attention away from them and the few that do stick around are so spaced out from the shock you have to pull them along until their brain re-engages."

"Still, it's a job that needs doing," Wannabe said as they came to a stop outside 'The Bronze'. "Plus Hokage-sama's orders are clear: monitor and protect the hellmouth from supernatural and demonic threats. Until that changes, thanks or no thanks, we've got a job to do."

"Yeah, yeah, I know that!" she said with some irritation at her teammate at stating the obvious, "It's just nice getting some thanks for a job well done, ya know?"

"Well not all towns can have a guy like Hachi, Dog Girl." Ayeka girl said with a smug smile.

"Shut. IT. **BITCH**." She growled out, making it clear that one more word about **that** mission would end in pain for self-proclaimed future wife of Wannabe.

"But it's such an interesting story. We'd been dispatched to this small village in Tea Country to root out some bandits that had been causing trouble," Ayeka said, unimpressed by the hostility coming from her teammate. "It didn't take us long to find them and deal with them. However the big surprise came at the end when we received a personal thank you from the son of the village elder. Dog Girl, however, got something more: a marriage proposal!"

"WHAT!" exclaimed Wannabe and his friends in surprise.

"It's true! Turns out the guy was a big fan of manga with jungle girls in them and thought Hana fit the bill perfectly," Ayeka explained chuckling a bit at that memory. "I don't think I've ever seen Dog Girl run that fast before!"

With her shameful secret out she wanted to pound her teammate into the ground but that would only make her look weak and probably amuse the others even more. Instead she decided she'd follow Ayeka's lead and bring up things the other would rather stay forgotten.

"Well I was surprised that one time that you actually turned down that chance a year ago to marry into the Feudal Lord's family. He was such a willing suitor, too," she said with a feral grin at the look of discomfort on Ayeka's face. "Bought you gifts and everything the entire time we were there. What was the reason you declined again?"

Ayeka just mumbled a response that was too low for anyone to hear.

"What was that? I don't think anyone heard it?" she asked her grin growing into a smile.

"He was…" replied Ayeka before lowering into a mumble again.

"Speak up, blondie," she goaded with a smug tone. "I'm sure everyone's curious now."

"HE WAS A FAT, DISGUSTING SLOB, OKAY!" Ayeka finally yelled out before making a promise with her eyes that there would be payback. "I may want to move up in the world but even I have to draw the line somewhere and that fat ass tub of lard was way past the line."

Then in a move she should've seen coming, the blonde glomped onto Wannabe, leaning into him like he was her lifeline.

"Xander-sama is much more to my liking!" she said with a smile that left her intentions clear as day.

"Why do you put '-sama' after Xander's name like that?" Buffy asked, sounding like the bottle blonde she was.

"It's a Japanese honorific, blondie," she replied, trying not to sound **too** annoyed that one of Wannabe's friends was this clueless. "You use it with the name of a person much higher up the social ladder than you are or someone you admire. In Wannabe's case, it's because he was named the head of his clan back in Konoha before we left."

"So he's like a nobleman?" Willow asked with her intellectual interest piqued.

"More like a pro athlete," she replied trying to put it in terms the American would understand. "While Konoha has tons of ninja, there are certain families with a little something extra in them that puts them in a class of their own. The Uchiha clan is… special."

"Because of that red eye thing Xander can do?" Willow asked, following a line of thought in her head.

"Yeah," she replied, looking to Wannabe and wondering just how much he'd told his friends before leaving for Konoha.

While she didn't like following orders from the fossils, she knew that the ANBU was somewhere nearby keeping an eye on them. If he thought Xander had divulged sensitive information to someone not of Konoha, then it could mean anything from a memory altering jutsu to something… a little more extreme. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that. She knew that while Xander had come to like it in Konoha and formed bonds there the connection he had with his friends in Sunnydale was much stronger. If forced to choose between the two places, she believed he'd side with his friends here on the Hellmouth, regardless of the cost to himself.

"You wouldn't believe the trouble I had just getting some training done in Konoha," Wannabe said, sounding relieved that he wouldn't have to go through those troubles again. "Everywhere I went it was 'Xander-sama' this and 'Xander-sama' that. Some of them weren't even out of the Academy!"

Both of Wannabe's friends, Willow and Buffy, laughed at the images that were no doubt dancing through their heads and she joined them a bit as it had been amusing to watch. So many men thought being sought after by multiple women was the height of masculinity and an all-around good time. Little did they realize that, aside from a few liberal ladies, most women didn't like sharing when it came to the man they had their eye on. Worse yet love could quickly turn to hate if the asshole even suggested the possibility of being allowed to keep seeing the other woman. Wannabe, fortunately, had enough sense to realize this fact before putting his own foot in that shit and hopefully would keep that bit of info nearby if those Amazon bitches showed up again. While she personally didn't care who the Uchiha wound up screwing, she knew that Ayeka wouldn't like it one bit if the man she planned on wedding and bedding started thinking about other women.

"Fortunately a handful of stink bombs discouraged most of them and the rest had better things to do soon after," Wannabe said, censoring his words accordingly so as not to give out the wrong info. "Though now I'm beginning to wish I'd thought to bring some of those stink bombs with me. Two Amazons and their chaperon… as a certain ninja back in Konoha would say, '**troublesome**'."

"You really think that they're going to stick around?" Willow asked, sounding like she thought the trio of Chinese women would leave within a week.

"They were interested enough in me to hold a tournament, make an exception to their laws and come all the way here just to seal the deal," Xander replied, sounding like he wished it were otherwise. "I think we can count on seeing them around the Hellmouth for the next couple of weeks at least."

"If they even **try** to get their claws on you, I'll send them back to their tribe in pine boxes!" Ayeka growled, making it clear she wasn't about to let them have their way.

"You aren't really going to kill them, a-are you?" Willow asked, sounding like there might be a problem if Ayeka tried.

"Mmmm… no, Xander-sama wouldn't like that." Ayeka said with some reluctance before a determined look appeared on her face, "But I'll sure as hell make them wish I had!"

_I just know this is gonna give me grief __**somehow**__!_ She thought and made a mental note to be elsewhere when the Amazons and Ayeka bumped heads in the future.

_**A Recently Vacated Apartment, Downtown Sunnydale, Same Time, Deo's P.O.V**_

"The game has begun, ladies." Deo said as she brushed enough ash off of the chair she'd chosen to make it safe to sit on. "I expect your best efforts from this point on."

"Hai!" declared both young Amazons as they bowed respectfully at her.

"While I had hoped that we would be able to return home with your new husband almost immediately after you had fulfilled Amazon law, this may actually be better," she said as she considered what the future would hold. "If we had simply left with him, it would have been a bit… disappointing. Now, though, by setting down the terms that we must follow, he will be unable to refuse us when we not only meet his terms but manage to surpass them beyond his expectations. It'll be **fun**!"

"What about Bitch Girl and Slut Girl?" her daughter asked, sounding like she wanted to go back to the library and remove the ninja girls immediately.

"They won't be a problem. Think of them less as problems and more as ways you can show your future husband why he would be a fool to reject you," she advised as she watched Perfume dispose the last of the vampiric tenants that had once lived in the apartment she sat in.

Upon leaving the library at the high school, she'd immediately begun looking for a suitable place for them to live until they succeeded in acquiring the young Uchiha's co-operation. They'd used up most of the currency they'd managed to get exchanged in Japan already and didn't have a new source of income just yet, so they'd been forced to improvise. Once they located a building that would allow them the best access to the town and, more importantly, her future son-in-law, they'd explored the interior until they found an apartment that suited their needs. Unfortunately they found out, much to their displeasure, that a group of vampires had similar taste in homes and were none too happy about their unexpected eviction notice.

They didn't last long.

For as long as their tribe of Amazon's had been around, they had never had much trouble with demons. With their skill and strength, only the stronger breed's required the power of the entire tribe. As for vampires… well, the ash-covered state of the apartment at the moment pretty much made it clear what happened when they got delusions of grandeur.

With the place now vacant, they had a place to live and she smiled watching her two charges go about the place, no doubt to choose a room to call their own. It wouldn't take long to clean up but, once that was done, she'd have to figure out a reliable source of income since it was inevitable that the landlord of the place would come looking for rent money. Sadly there were only two real talents the three of them were sufficiently skilled at: fighting and cooking. One was naturally related to other since, in order to fight, you needed the energy food gave in order to do so and food was one of the few resources worth fighting over. Since it would no doubt make the elders back home angry to begin teaching outsiders techniques known only to the Chinese Amazon Tribe, that only left cooking and, from what she'd seen of the town so far, there'd definitely be a market for it. While the village she grew up in was a fair distance from other towns and cities, she was by no means ignorant of the goings on of the rest of the world. While the more popular Asian dishes could easily be found either in a supermarket or restaurant, the less common ones were almost impossible to find. They'd passed through what appeared to be the main area for restaurants in this town and the few places that carried Chinese food had a limited menu. If she opened up such a place and served every dish, she was sure that people would come.

As for the money she'd need to get things started… she'd raid some vampire and demon lairs for the next week and 'liberate' whatever could be sold off for cash.

Doing so would also provide her with the opportunity to get the lay of the land as far as the demon community was concerned. The information would be useful in the efforts of her charges to win over their future husband as well. With the right information and a little planning, they could be made to look quite skilled as well as powerful, increasing the odds that the Uchiha would see them in a favorable light. A heroic rescue here, a difficult foe slain only through their intervention there, and she knew her future son-in-law would be unable to maintain his resistance against their charms.

Just as she was about to head out, Perfume came out of a room, presumably the one she'd chosen to be her own, and joined her at the door to the apartment.

"Where are you going? I thought you'd want to spend more time fixing up your room." She said looking down at the dark haired Amazon.

"To check out town. Find good spy spots," Perfume replied showing that she had brought her camera and binoculars.

"For what, precisely?" she asked, having a feeling the young woman was up to something.

"Demons and vampires, of course." Perfume said in a matter-of-fact manner.

Hearing this only put her more on edge since she was aware of the teenager's **hobby** and how it could endanger their purpose in Sunnydale. Still, she had secretly been through the future Uchiha wife's things five times since they'd left the village and found nothing to indicate that the girl had snuck out to pursue this hobby during their trip. Perhaps the girl was finally growing up and had abandoned such unfitting pursuits in order to become a better Amazon. It would be good news for the elders back home, who'd grown tired of the girl's antics.

"Very well. Be careful, though," she cautioned as she opened the door. "There may be breeds of demon that we know nothing about here on the Hellmouth."

"Hai!" Perfume said, running out of their new apartment first and heading down the hallway to the stairs.

She couldn't help but sigh in annoyance at the headaches she could feel coming thanks to the actions of that young woman. Perfume might be an Amazon on par with her own daughter, Lotion, but she had certain… quirks that tended to complicate the lives of those put in charge of handling her.

_I just hope she doesn't go too far out of control. _She thought recalling some of the stories she'd heard about the young woman.

_**Somewhere in Sunnydale, Same Time**_

"Well, well, well! Isn't this an interesting development," he said to himself as he finished reading the report submitted by his second in command.

Indeed it was something he hadn't seen coming and he prided himself on being aware of everything that went on around him. He'd been aware of Ethan Rayne's little Halloween stunt all those months ago, as well as the fact that the Harris boy had retained some lingering traces of his costume possession. It had required some… refinements in his plans but, at most, it'd meant moving the lad from merely being a Slayer groupie to being a player in his own right. When the boy had left Sunnydale for a place overseas, he had thought it likely that that would be the last that he'd see of the young man. While not many were aware of the ninja villages south of China, he knew the reason for that was that the shinobi rarely ventured outside of their respective countries.

Indeed, he knew more about the hidden ninja villages than even those many centuries his senior did.

Most beings such as he would have felt threatened by this development and would have tried to remove the ninja threat immediately before it could interfere with their plans. However he had something more… profound in mind. One of the reasons he'd lasted for as long as he had was that he knew how to turn a negative development to his advantage. The question then became how could he turn the arrival of a team of Konoha shinobi to his advantage?

He would need to take his time and think over the matter thoroughly. To act too hastily would be to squander the chance that fate had placed before him.

Not something he'd allowed himself to do in the past.

_**The Next Day, A Road Leading Out of Sunnydale, Ayeka's P.O.V**_

"So, why are we heading out to the middle of nowhere, Wannabe?" Hana griped as she followed the Uchiha of Team Anko.

"Before we left Japan, I figured that we'd need a place a little more private than some apartment," Xander-sama replied as he looked down at a piece of paper in his hand. "I tried to think of some place that'd work out but couldn't think of one. Then I remembered that my Mom left me some property outside of Sunnydale, so I called our family's lawyer and asked if there was anything on it. When he told me what he'd found out about it, I figured it was worth taking a look at."

"What did he find?" she asked, curious about what could cause her future husband to dance around the truth like this.

For a couple of minutes the young man who'd brought them to America didn't say anything but, when they finished walking up to the top of a hill, a smile spread out on his face.

"That." Xander replied, pointing to a spot just off the road up ahead.

Picking up the pace so that she got to where he was first, she looked in the direction he was pointing and let her jaw drop in shock at what she saw. The shock was the result of two things. The first was that there was a structure where he was pointing and it looked big enough to belong to a moderately prosperous ninja clan. The second reason was that whomever had both designed and built the place must have changed his mind at least three times since it contained elements belonging to Shinto, Shaolin and Buddhist temples.

At least that's what it looked like to her but they were still a ways away from the place.

"What is it? Some kind of temple?" Hana asked as she tried to take in more details with her beast-like eyes.

"Let's take a look!" Xander-sama replied before breaking into a run for the structure.

"Wha-? Hey! Wait for us!" she exclaimed before breaking into a run herself after him.

It didn't take them long to get to the land left to her future husband by her deceased future mother-in-law and, as she stood before the front gate, she found her original appraisal was correct. A large wall surrounded the structure with tile shingles at the top and, over the main entrance, hung a sign that while showing its age clearly said 'Kokoro no Kasai Satsu'. Translated into English it meant 'Heart of Fire Temple', which made her wonder just what Uchiha Jun'ko had been thinking when she bought the place. The name was oddly appropriate for a member of a ninja clan that specialized in fire element ninjutsu.

"Well, isn't this weird." Anko-sensei said looking up at the same sign. "You'd think your mother somehow knew this would happen, Xander-kun."

"Stranger things have happened," Xander-sama said with a bit of doubt lingered in his voice. "The place looks like it's in pretty good shape on the outside. Let's see what it's like on the inside."

With that Team Anko pushed the thick-looking wooden doors open to reveal the interior of the place that was likely to become their home in America. What they found on the inside only increased their suspicion that the mother of their sole Uchiha teammate had foreseen her son choosing to walk the path of a ninja. Inside the gate there was a large courtyard, at the center of which was a stone platform that extended about three feet up from the ground and was about forty feet from one side to the other in the shape of a square. It looked like it was made of some pretty sturdy stone and would be perfect for training on, if she was any judge. To the left of the entrance there looked to be some sort of small storage building but the biggest of all the structures was the main building that sat at the far end of the courtyard.

It was a little hard to get a handle on what part of the main building was for what considering the mix of architectural elements, but she figured the left side of the place was an internal dojo or prayer room. The right side was probably the living quarters and bathrooms while the center was for the kitchen, dining room and recreation rooms. She could have been wrong but, if the guy who built this place learned from places similar to those that the architects from the Country of Fire learned their skills, she was fairly certain that her guesses were right.

"Guess Mr. Wells wasn't kidding," Xander-sama said in an astonished tone of voice. "He said that this place used to belong to a martial arts master who claimed he was going to raise an army of warriors to fight against the darkness in Sunnydale. Wells just wrote him off as a karate fanatic or someone who wanted to stop the 'gangs on PCP' and put it out of his mind."

"What happened to him?" Hana asked sounding interested in learning more.

"According to Mr. Wells, he managed to get a total of three students and after a couple of months started patrolling Sunnydale at night," Xander replied as Ava landed on his shoulder. "However, according to the papers and Mr. Wells, they started attacking innocent people. The police cornered them in the warehouse district where they were kicking the shit out of some warehouse workers and all of them died in the shootout that followed. At least that was the story Wells gave me."

"You don't believe it's true." Anko-sensei said without interrupting her visual appraisal of their new HQ.

"Considering how often 'gangs on PCP' and 'death by barbecue fork' are put into Sunnydale P.D reports, I think it's pretty obvious that there's something wrong with them," Xander replied with an undercurrent of anger in his voice. "Either they're demons in disguise or they're being paid by the demons to deal with trouble that they either can't or don't want to handle themselves. The martial arts master and his students were probably killed off because they actually started to make a difference."

"If they were taking a bite out of the demons, why didn't they take care of this kung fu guy themselves?" Hana asked, finding it weird that the demonic community resorted to using the local cops to dispose of a problem.

"They wanted to discredit the master and his students. If they died under mysterious circumstances or with holes in their throats, they'd die martyrs who died at the hands of a 'gang on PCP'," Anko-sensei said with anger mirroring what was in her future husband's voice. "However if they died while resisting arrest for a serious crime, they'd be nothing more than out of control thugs who stupidly thought they could beat the police. It would destroy all of the hope they might have managed to build up until then."

"Yep," Xander said before shaking off the bad mood. "Let's take a look around and see just how big a mess we've got to clean up to make this place livable. I'll take the left third, Ayeka take the middle third and you two can check out the right third. Sound good?"

With a nod, Team Anko split up to check out their assigned parts of the main building with her going straight ahead. Upon entering the structure, she found that her earlier guess had been right since she could see what looked to be a kitchen with an adjoining dining room to her right. Spotting a closed door to her left, she walked over and opened it to find something that looked like a library or personal study. The shelves were empty and a layer of dust covered everything but nothing she could see looked like it deserved to be thrown into the back of a garbage truck. Moving over to the chair that sat behind the desk, she sat down and immediately regretted it as a plume of dust exploded up in her face, triggering a coughing fit. Waving her hand to dispel it, she quickly got out of the chair and brushed whatever dust had gotten onto her off to the floor.

_Definitely needs a good cleaning._ She thought as she left a room she knew her future husband would use when he needed to tend to clan matters or official orders from Hokage-sama.

Moving over to the kitchen area, she found that most of it was old style with only areas with electrical appliances scattered here and there. Those appliances, of course, were a good ten years out of date, meaning they'd belonged by the previous owner of this place or Jun'ko had bought them second hand. They'd have to test each of them out to see which worked and which didn't before even thinking about cooking anything.

The dining room from what she could see was pretty bare except for the main table and four chairs in pretty much the same condition as the chair in the study. All-in-all, she was unsurprised at the good condition of the place but wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It'd mean less work for the rest of them to get everything the way they wanted it and that meant more time for her to make some progress with Xander-sama.

He now saw her as a friend and a teammate, of that she had no doubt now, but now was the time to take things to the next level. However three obstacles now stood in her path in the form of the three Chinese Amazons who had the gall to say that they had claim on **her** Xander-sama. The very idea that they chose to marry whichever guy was the first to succeed in kicking their ass was absurd to her and a little bit offensive. A woman should choose her husband based on his appearance, his personality and his status in society. In those respects she judged Xander-sama to be an ideal husband for her and, as such, she would not let some outsiders stop her from reaching her goal.

She felt confident that in a straight fight she'd have no trouble kicking the asses of all three Amazons, after all Xander-sama beat four all by himself with only Halloween-derived skills, but decided that that would be the wrong course of action to take. To attack them, hurt them and run them out of town, could be interpreted as a sign that she considered them serious threats to her position and feared that they would succeed in taking the Uchiha from her. It would be a sign of weakness and diminished confidence. She **refused** to sabotage herself in that manner and in doing so provide her enemies with an opening they could use to their advantage. Instead she would ignore them, look at them as though they were beneath her and when necessary surpass their attempts to seduce her future husband by employing tactics honed in the year since she first began to think of boys and romance.

While her attempts to get into a noble family had been unsuccessful thus far, the various dates she had gone on had not been for nothing.

_I'll show those three bitches who the Sage of Seduction is, _she thought with a visage of determination on her face. _They'll look like ten ryou whores by the time I'm done!_

_**The HQ/Home of Team Anko, That Evening, Buffy's P.O.V**_

_I hope Xander and his friends don't do anything too ninja-y tonight._ Buffy thought as she looked out of the passenger side window of her Mom's car.

She knew she could trust Xander enough to keep a lid on his abilities while she and her mother were there but she wasn't so sure about the rest of them. After all, they lived in a place where jumping from rooftop to rooftop and spitting fireballs was normal. She didn't know what she'd do if something like that happened but she was fairly sure her mother would faint or maybe cling to denial until she forgot the entire thing. She just hoped her mother didn't do something like forbid her to ever come out there again or even worse break off her friendship with him. She knew that she was probably being ridiculous but, considering the one time she tried to tell her parents the truth, they put her in a mental hospital. It had taken some very slick talking and she suspected some side dealing by the Watcher's Council, but she'd managed to get out within a few weeks. From the day she'd left the hospital, she'd kept a lid on the Slayer side of her life and hid it from her mother as best she could since she had no desire to be sent back.

_I also don't want Xander to have to through the same thing if Mom decides to 'help' him with his 'problem'._ She thought as they came to a stop right in front of the main gates.

It had been something that had started soon after Xander's mother had died and had only grown as her mother had tried to help the young man through the difficult time. However, the more the matriarch of the Summers family learned about the Harris family, the more she'd tried to make sure the founding male member of the Scoobies wouldn't have to spend any more time at home than necessary. She even suspected that her mother had made an effort to get Xander's dad arrested so he could be adopted into the Summers family. However she knew better than her mother how unreliable the local police were and believed that, unless a miracle happened, Tony Harris would continue to live under the same roof as his son. She didn't know herself how bad Xander had it living with his father but the dark look that sometimes came over his face when he spoke of his father implied much.

_It doesn't matter now,_ she thought as she got out of the car, carrying the meal her mother had cooked for the occasion.

"Well… it's certainly **big,**" her mom said, sounding impressed by the size of the temple-house-place. "You say his mother left this for him in her will?"

"Yeah, she was a… a karate fangirl when she was younger." She said, coming up with a reason why Jessica Harris would buy a place like this, "Guess she planned on teaching Xander someday."

"It's sad that she didn't get the chance," her mom said as a look of sympathy and sadness crossed her features.

"Yeah. Sad," she said as there was nothing more profound or meaningful that came to mind.

After a moment of silence they walked towards the front gates but, before either of them could raise an arm to push it open, it opened to reveal the wild eyed young woman that was part of Xander's team. Hannah was her name… maybe… and she had these red tattoos on her cheeks that kinda made her look like an extra from one of those Cowboy and Indian movies she'd seen as a kid.

"About time you two got here," Hannah said, pushing the gates wide enough for the two Summers women to walk through. "Wannabe wasn't letting anyone eat until you got here and I'm **starving**!"

Without a word the two of them entered, a little taken aback by the lack of manners of Xander's teammate but, once they were inside, they got their first look at the interior of the place. All about her she could see something that looked like it'd popped right out of a kung fu film and made her want to ask Giles if they could start training here instead of the library. Already her mind was coming up with reasons why this was better than the library and how it'd help her training improve.

"Should I be shopping for a karate outfit for you tomorrow?" her mother asked with some mirth on her face.

"What?" she asked somewhat confused at her mother's question.

"You seem to like all this," her mother replied still with a smile on her face. "I don't think I've seen that look in your eye since you first saw Dorothy Hamill skate for the first time."

Thinking on that for a moment, she had to admit that the 'hum' in her body was somewhat similar to how she'd felt the moment her interest in figure skating was born. However it was more because the place appealed to her Slayer side than her Buffy side. To the Slayer side of her, anything that had to do with fighting, with battle, was appealing and that was probably why she sometimes treated a shiny new weapon like designer boots. To be in a place like this was adding the proper setting for one who carried the Slayer essence inside her to train and hone her skills. Far better than a place filled with books where there wasn't nearly enough room for her to move about or really cut loose.

Looking ahead to the main building, she could see that the lights were on inside and her enhanced senses told her that everyone was gathered in the center rooms. It only took them a couple of minutes to get inside and see them all arrayed about the dining room table with half of the surface already covered in food. Most of it was takeout from some of the restaurants around Sunnydale but she could spot a couple of dishes that had been made from the nearby kitchen. There was also the fact that her sharp eyes could see signs of cooking having been done on the counter and it looked like there'd be some cleaning to be done afterwards.

"Nice place Xan!" she complimented as all eyes fell on her and her mother. "Looks like you hit the jackpot."

Taking a quick glance about the room at Xander's teammates, she was glad to see that they'd at least tried to look like normal people rather than super ninja. Still, she could see signs of concealed weapons but, so long as they didn't take any of them out, everything would be good.

"Yeah it's a good place but it's still got some fixing up that needs doing," Xander said with his usual lopsided smile. "Not enough to drain me dry money-wise but I'll definitely be feeling the pinch for a while."

"Really? It doesn't look that run down to me."

"You know the old sayin' about looks being deceiving, Buff," he said letting her know with his voice how serious he was. "It might look good the first time you see it but this place hasn't been used in about ten years. It's going to cost a serious amount of money to get this place into tip top shape."

She guessed he was right.

Ten years of not having anyone live here, much less stay on top of any repairs that needed to be done, would leave the place in need of some fixing up. Looking to her mother, she could already see her Mom planning out the next few weekends so that they could help clean the place and repair what they could. She almost groaned at that because it'd mean work of the sort that wouldn't result in the end of the world if she didn't show up. Still, it was for Xander and she guessed if it was for only a few hours on the weekend, she could rearrange her own schedule to fit it in.

It was then that something occurred to her that could put a serious wrench in Xander's plans.

"Are you sure it's okay for you to live here, Xander?" she asked with a bit of concern, "You aren't eighteen yet."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Hannah asked, sounding like she was clueless as to why that'd be important.

"Here in America you aren't considered an adult until you reach the age of eighteen. As a result, Xander's expected to live with his father until he's legally of age to live on his own," her mother said as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

"That's bullshit! I might still live with my mom but I could've moved out two years ago if I'd wanted to." Hana exclaimed, as though she'd been told she couldn't date guys until she was thirty.

"Really?" asked her Mom, sounding genuinely curious.

"The village we live in is a little different from the rest of the world, Mrs. Summers," replied Xander's ninja teacher, Anke….Anku…something. "Back home, we take learning martial arts pretty serious and you're considered good enough to live on your own when you make it to the second phase of your training."

"When does the training begin?" asked her mother, sounding curious and wanting to learn more about where Xander had been since leaving Sunnydale.

"Depends on the parents and the kid, but usually around ten years old. Some earlier if they show they have the knack for it," Anke replied, though a slight twitch picked up by her Slayer senses indicated a possible lie.

From there it pretty much fell into a discussion about Cone'O'ha and what went on there and, while the rest of Xander's team added in some info every now and again, most of it came from the purple-haired woman. She could tell that the twenty-something woman was telling as much of the truth as she could but, for the most part, it was made up. Not that she minded all that much. Anything other than the absolute truth was fine by her. After all, if her mom learned the truth about Xander being a super ninja, then she might pick up on some of her odd habits and pay more attention to them. That would lead to questions, which would lead to arguments, and then eventually something about her being the Slayer would come out.

She really didn't want that to happen.

Her home was one of the few places that hadn't been warped by her Calling all that badly. She didn't know what she'd do if her Mom found out the truth.

_**Sunnydale High School, Six Days Later, Morning, Xander's P.O.V**_

"Just one more year," he muttered to himself as he strode down the hallway to the door that would lead to the first class of his final year of High School.

It was something that he'd just as soon not have to go through, what with his new position as head of the Uchiha clan and Chuunin of Konoha, but to avoid legal troubles, as well as getting Mrs. S on his back, it was necessary. For the past six days the older woman had been doing her best to help out at the new HQ and, unless he was mistaken, provide him with excuses not to have to go home to Tony. Oh, she didn't phrase it in that manner or anything but he could see past the surface of what she said as well as what she did. It touched his heart that she cared about him that much and he wondered if that was how it would have been with his own mother had circumstances been different. He sighed as he entered the classroom and headed for his seat, saddened by the fact that he'd never know the answer to that bit of speculation. While he had heard that there existed jutsu that could raise the dead, the price tag for those techniques was way too steep for him to consider under any circumstances.

_Of course there's also the fact that I don't have anywhere near the skill or chakra level to execute them. _He thought as he sat down in his seat to wait for the class to start.

Still, he knew he'd come a long way from where he'd been in terms ninja abilities when he'd left Sunnydale to take his mother home to Konoha. He'd gone from making up his own training methods to being shown how to do it the right way and was judged by one of the legendary Sannin to be good enough to be called Chuunin. That meant that he'd be a competent second in command for Anko-sensei and might even get assigned a B or C ranked mission during the summer months when he was back in Konoha. With this being the case, he mentally made a note to find different ways to hone his strategic abilities and to think in terms of tactics that can help bring him as well as those he's placed in charge of victory. He had to smirk for a moment when the thought of learning shogi entered his mind, since that was the preferred game of choice of his fellow newly promoted Chuunin, Nara Shikamaru. It was a tough game to gain a grasp of and even harder to become any good at, but if the member of Team Asuma was any hint, it was great for developing a ninja's tactical skills. Making it so each piece represented a ninja and every move a piece made a jutsu made it great for planning how to deal with a specific enemy.

_I doubt I'll ever be the genius Shikamaru is but if I can even become half as good as him, it'll be worth it._ He thought as he watched Mr. Manson walk into the room, only to come to a stop in the middle of the class in front of the blackboard.

"Alright, before we get into the first class of the day, I have an announcement to make," Mr Manson said, bringing up a handful of paper in his right hand. "We have two new transfer students that will be joining our class for their final year. They are from a small school over in China and so they don't know much English, but I expect you to treat them the same as you would treat each other."

That description alone set off alarms in his mind but he dismissed what his mind was telling them as he refused to believe it was possible. There was no way that **they** could have arranged all of this so quickly and no **way** that Snyder would have approved it. However, when Mr. Manson gestured to two people who were in the hallway, he was shown once more that on the Hellmouth while many things were improbable, nothing was impossible.

Walking into the classroom and wearing clothes that were probably intended to be a fashionable mix of common American clothes and Chinese Amazon fashion were none other than Lotion and Perfume. They seemed to be putting on the act of being your stereotypical transfer students but it was ruined by the fact that they locked onto him with their eyes the moment they came to a stop next to the teacher.

"Please state your names for the class, ladies." Mr. Manson asked before stepping back a bit so that the two Amazons would be the center of attention.

"My name is Lu Xion. Pleased to meet you all." Lotion stated with a bit of effort, making it clear her ability to speak English was incomplete.

"And my name is Pu Fium. I look forward to meeting all of you," stated Perfume with a look directed at him that sent a shudder up his spine.

With those words both Amazons bowed properly towards the class and he could tell by the looks he could see on some of his classmate's faces that the various cliques were evaluating the two newcomers albeit in different ways. The members of Cordy's clique were evaluating their looks and fashion sense to see if the duo met the right criteria to be allowed into the upper levels of high school society. The jocks, of course, were debating which one of them would get first crack at asking them out on a date and how long it'd take them to have a romp in the back seat with one of them. The nerds… well, they were just on hormone overload in the presence of two fine-looking females. As for the students like himself, who weren't in any real category, they just seemed to take everything in stride and only made note of who they were.

"Now if you two would take your seats… I believe there are two free seats near Mr. Harris in the third row." Mr. Manson said before pointing to the two vacant seats on either side of him.

_My bad school rep works against me __**again!**_ He thought as he nervously watched the two Amazons walk to their assigned seats. _It was bad enough when the girls thought I was a loser and the jocks thought that I was a geek. I was okay with that since I still had Willow and Buffy. Now it's given those two warrior women the perfect opening!_

Sitting down in what had to be the most provocative way he'd ever seen, he hoped that the duo would at least have the sense not to do anything too **extreme** in front of so many people.

"Nihau," they said in perfect sync and in perfectly seductive voices before leaning over and giving him a quick peck on each cheek.

Naturally this caused a small uproar of talking both by those amused by what had happened and those who would now look down on the Amazon's for their choice to kiss the former King of Cretins. It took a while for Mr. Manson to restore order to the classroom but, even after he did, the son of Uchiha Jun'ko knew that this was only the beginning. With no respite either at home or in school, he'd have to be on alert at all times to deflect and evade their attempts at seduction. While he did think they were pretty, they were also nuts if they thought that just because of some outdated law that he'd just obediently walk down the aisle with both of them.

Plus he had concerns about his continued good health if he accepted their advances while Hana and Ayeka were within sight of him.

_Never in all the days since I first learned ninjutu techniques have I ever wanted to pull off the body replacement technique more than I do right now. _He thought as Mr. Mason began teaching the day's lesson.


	2. Old Routines and New Arrivals

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and associated companies. I make no profit off of this whatsoever. I write only because there are those who like my works and because I find writing fanfic fun. I can assure you that no matter what you get from me it won't even cover a tenth of your lawyer bills.

_**Somewhere Far Away, Evening**_

"Is this him?" asked a soft yet intelligent female voice.

It took a few moments of looking at the computer screen but the look that came over the second female's face was all the answer that the genius needed. Immediately she began to download all the information the file contained to her own computer while beginning the process of covering her tracks. Her friend had called in a big favor and even agreed to one in return in order to gain the information on the man whose picture was on the screen at that very moment. She had been wary of agreeing to the request, given the highly illegal nature of it all, but seeing the passion in her friend's eyes she had reluctantly agreed to lend her skills to the effort.

She just hoped that it would all be worth it in the end.

Of course, now that they had the information they sought, the next most logical question came to mind.

"Now that we know who he is and where we can find him, what will you do now?" she asked her friend who fortunately snapped out of her daze.

"Talk to Sensei, of course." Her friend replied with a confident smile.

With that name, she caught an inkling of what her friend intended and momentarily marveled at how much effort the brunette was putting into this venture. It happened before with other men but the amount of work put into it made it appear to be no more than an after school activity.

This… this was something… **more**.

Only time would tell whether or not it met the potential that existed or lived a short life like always.

_**The Following Monday, Noon, Sunnydale High School, Willow's POV**_

"Find anything?" Oz asked as he looked at the dead cat with a certain fascination.

"Not really. There are a lot of different ways of making dead bodies move or give them a kinda unlife, but nothing that really matches this," she said as she closed the book she'd been looking through. "Besides which, who'd want to reanimate a dead cat? It wouldn't really be all that useful."

"Maybe it came back to life on its own." Cordy said offhand as she tried to make sense of the book in front of her.

"Possible, but unlikely. If the Hellmouth could naturally raise the dead, we would have encountered many more instances of by now," Giles said from his place in the stacks. "It is far more likely that a spell or perhaps a demonic ability is responsible. Nevertheless, I agree that this phenomena is proving quite difficult to properly diagnose."

While it was true that they hadn't been researching for very long, Giles having only brought the undead cat in that morning, they were usually able to find **something** within the first few hours. A place to look was always found relatively quickly thanks to Giles' training as a Watcher and even if he couldn't figure the problem out right away his books quickly helped out.

_Still, there's not much else we can do but keep looking._ She thought as she grabbed the next book in the stack that had yet to be looked through.

She had barely finished opening it when Xander burst into the room and swiftly leapt over the nearby counter before disappearing from sight. This puzzled her right up until she spotted two all-too-familiar heads of hair race by the entrance to the library. She hadn't been able to get a clear look, given the size and shape of the windows in the doors, but the sheer number of times that the Amazon duo had popped up in the last week alone made it fairly easy for her to identify them. Establishing their identities also helped explain her best friends' actions since he'd taken to evading them whenever possible. Not an easy job, given that both Lotion and Perfume were official students in his class, but it could've been a whole lot worse. The duo had attempted to get Xander assigned as their official guide and helper, playing up the angle that they were new to America, but thankfully Snyder's unjustified dislike of the Scooby gang kept that from happening. Instead of Xander, the two Chinese girls had wound up with Jonathan as their guide but that had lasted all of three days before the warrior women had told the young man to essentially get lost. She sort of felt bad for Jonathan since she knew how it felt to be treated like you were less than dirt, but it wasn't like she could tell them to go back.

Five minutes passed before Xander peaked his head up from behind the counter and warily looked at the door for another two before finally deciding that he really had given Perfume and Lotion the slip.

"Damn, those two are getting persistent!" he exclaimed as he walked over to the only vacant chair next to the table. "What's it going to take to get them to put two and two together and realize that I am **NOT** going to marry them?!"

"Unless you plan on cross dressing and dating Snyder, I don't think there's anything you can do to stop them." Cordy replied with a bit of snark as she turned a page with a bit too much anger.

**Everyone** shuddered at the mental picture that that option brought forth in their minds before they banished it.

"First: GAH! And secondly, I'd sooner run through the sewers drenched in barbecue sauce and dare every demon I saw to eat me before I'd do something like that," Xander said, emphatically shooting down the idea before letting out a discouraged sigh. "Still, you're probably right about it taking something like that to get them to back off."

"I'm not sure they'd back off even if you did do something like that," Buffy said from her seat with no book in hand. "If they think you're just doing it to get rid of them, it won't work plus, even if their law is **SO** a bad example for girls everywhere, it's pretty obvious that they take it seriously. So short of some guy coming along and making them a better offer, I'd say you're stuck with them."

"Buff? Not helping!" Xander said with a bit more sharpness then he'd probably intended.

"Sorry," the Slayer shrugged before looking away from him.

"You should go on a date with them." Oz said simply after finishing his examination of the undead cat.

"WHAT!?"

"Warriors like challenges," Oz explained as he eased himself back into his chair. "The more you fight them, the harder they'll pursue."

"So you're saying that if I give in, they'll lose interest?" Xander asked, sounding a bit skeptical of the idea.

"Yep," Oz replied without elaborating on his idea.

"He might have a point, Xan. For a girl, half the fun of going after a guy she likes is the challenge." Buffy said, putting in her two cents. "Sure, they all dream about getting him on the first try but it wouldn't be nearly as fun."

"But what if they don't lose interest in me?" Xander asked, still not completely convinced. "Worse than that, what if Ayeka and the rest of my team find out? Anko-sensei'll probably get a kick out of the whole mess but the others'll beat the crap out of me for sure!"

"Then date them, too." Oz said as though it was just that easy.

"I'm not dating Anko-sensei because, for one thing, student-teacher relationships are just as frowned upon in Konoha as they are here and because she'd drive me nuts inside a week." Xander said, shaking his head in the negative. "Hana doesn't see me as anything but a teammate and would probably gut me if I asked her out on a date. As for Ayeka, while she'd jump at the chance to go out on a date, she'd be peeved to find out I went out on a date with anyone but her."

To this, all Oz did was shrug and state in body language that he didn't have any more ideas about how to handle the problem.

"As fascinating as Xander's current conundrum is, I would suggest that we focus on the problem at hand," Giles said, sounding like he was uncomfortable with the current conversation. "Now, as you will likely be here until the bell rings for your next class, would you please help with the research, Xander?"

"Sure, G-Man." Xander sounded happy to change topics as well. "What's the what, exactly? Other than the obvious."

"Well, at the moment, the issue is pretty much as you see it. Buffy found a dead cat in her basement yesterday and promptly buried it outside," Giles explained before resetting his glasses. "However this morning when she opened the back door to put the trash out the animal somehow came back to life and ran inside. She then called me to pick it up and since then we've been trying to figure out how this could have occurred."

"Yeah. I'm just lucky Mom was in the bathroom when it all happened," Buffy said, sounding relieved that she'd managed to keep this bit of weirdness away from her mother.

"Gotcha! So, is this going to be a 'Pet Cemetery' thing or are we going to get zombie people, too?" Xander asked after giving the meowing undead cat a once over.

"I don't know. Until we determine the specific manner in which the cat was brought back to life, we can't rule anything out." Giles replied, turning back to the book in his hands. "For obvious reasons, though, I sincerely hope that this is an isolated case. Given the number of cemeteries in Sunnydale, we would be quite overwhelmed if the dead began to rise."

"No kidding!" Xander said, voicing what everyone else was thinking.

Even if they took into account the vampire population, the number of corpses in Sunnydale easily numbered in the hundreds. If all of them clawed their way out of their graves and started shuffling around town, there'd be no way to stop them all before someone got hurt. Limited to only their usual weapons, they'd get dogpiled quickly and, even if the Konoha ninja helped out, they wouldn't be able to do much better. Since they'd arrived in town, they'd been coming along on just about every patrol so she'd been able to get a good idea of just how far they were willing to go with their techniques. From what she'd seen, they'd completely avoided techniques that would draw attention to their presence by being too flashy or leaving too big a mess behind. That meant no element techniques or hand-to-hand combat moves that'd tear up the landscape but that certainly didn't mean she hadn't been impressed with what they did do.

If she thought what Xander'd done against the Taraken assassins had been impressive, the moves he and his teammates had used in the last week had been downright amazing.

It almost made her wish that she hadn't promised not to snoop during their training because she would have loved to be able to do what they could.

Maybe if she could learn from them, she could be something more than just 'research girl'…

_**The Middle of Sunnydale, That Night, Mid-Evening, Hana's POV**_

"Hope you like the kitchen, Wannabe!" she said as they arrived at their usual starting point atop one of the taller buildings in town. "'Cause you're going to be cooking there for the next week!"

"Don't count on it, Dog Girl! I don't plan on losing tonight," Xander said with much confidence. "You, on the other hand, are going to scrubbing floors until they sparkle!"

"Hai, hai! I'm glad you're all fired up but let's get the show on the road," Anko-sensei said, interrupting the battle of wills. "The rules are pretty much the same tonight as they've been before except for one thing. Just like before, you're to patrol the town without being spotted by civilians and kill the demons you come across in three moves or less. The difference this time is that you'll be locating and killing them **before** they can attack anyone, even if they're walking down the street with civilians in view."

"That won't be too much of a challenge, Anko-sensei." Xander said, not really worried about the new wrinkle in their nightly routine. "Unless things've changed quite a bit since I left, the streets are pretty much deserted after nine. Sometimes it's busier on the weekends but not by much."

"Then you shouldn't have any trouble beating Hana and Ayeka." Anko-sensei said, sounding like she believed it'd be harder than Wannabe thought.

"Piece of cake," the head of the Uchiha clan snarked, sounding pretty sure of himself.

"Then it's time to begin. GO!" Anko-sensei as she vigorously chopped the air in front of her.

In a blur of motion, the four members of Team Anko scattered in different directions and used the surrounding environment to their advantage. It'd taken a bit of getting used to at first because she'd been so used to leaping the rooftops without really caring about who might see her down on the streets below. In the shinobi region of the world, people jumping from rooftop to rooftop were as commonplace as walking normally on the sidewalk. It was just another means of getting to where you wanted to go and no one really thought of it as anything more than that. As her Jonin instructor pointed out, though, they weren't in the ninja region anymore and their orders specifically said to keep a low profile, so she'd forced herself to keep her movements swift but obscure. At first this had caused Xander to beat her in the number of demons killed but once they started betting chores on how the patrol went, things got a lot more interesting. The bets mostly happened between her and Wannabe but, every once and a while, the others decided to get in on the action, though they had yet to manage a victory.

Moving from building to building and sometimes using the odd alleyway when she judged the surrounding structures to be too small to be used without being seen, she used her senses to look for any sign of potential targets. Her sense of smell was somewhat impaired by the unnatural stench the town gave off but thankfully the other four made up for it. Nevertheless, it was definitely a good thing at the end of the night when they all went back to their home, since it was far enough from Sunnydale that the stench was barely noticeable. Hagane, Ishina and Seirei likewise looked forward to returning home that might have had more to do with wanting to get the demon gunk out of their fur. While she might not have liked getting demon gunk on her, she figured it was much worse for her partners, given that it got into their fur and was probably a real bitch to get completely out.

_No matter what, I won't let myself or my girls turn into Ayeka!_ She thought as she sifted through the information her senses were imparting to her. _There's keeping yourself from looking like gutter trash and there's setting yourself up like a priceless doll. I'm neither and neither are my girls._

For the next hour she and her animal partners combed the town looking for prey and, while they'd managed to take care of two vampires easily enough, she wasn't satisfied. Vamps were nothing, a genin could probably handle them easily, and she wanted a particularly impressive victory to rub in Wannabe's face at the end of the night. She had faith, though, that she'd find something interesting sooner or later but if Xander wound up finding something sooner, it'd be just that much harder to find something to top it. She'd heard some of the stories about what had happened before the Uchiha left for Konoha and, while she was pretty sure some bullshit was mixed in, there was enough truth to get her interested. If the Sunnydale Hellmouth really was ground zero for the weird and the freaky, then she wanted front row seats to whatever came up next.

It was as she hopped from one rooftop to another though that she remembered what Wannabe had said about being careful what you ask for in Sunnydale because that was when she noticed a shambling form making its way slowly down the street beneath her.

Coming to a stop, she turned around and looked at the oddity, her partners stepping up beside her to look as well. It only took a few minutes for her to decide that it wasn't human because, even allowing for injuries, most people didn't move like that unless they were seriously hurt and those people generally didn't make it more than a few feet from **where** they were hurt.

That and if the person had the strength to move more than a few feet from where they got hurt, they usually also had the strength to call out for help or scream in pain.

That left some sort of unnatural being of some kind.

_Score!_ She thought as she realized that she had likely come across something that no one else had so far and therefore it'd earn her some real points.

Looking up and down the street, she was glad to see that there was no one within eyesight, so that meant she could cut loose a little with this one. Leaping down from the rooftop to a place right in the unnatural being's path, she turned to face it and recoiled a bit as she got a better look at it. Before she had just thought it to be an ugly demon of some kind but now she could see it was, in fact, a partially decayed human being. Taking a brief sniff, she could immediately tell that this person was dead and had been for quite some time, so that meant it was some sort of zombie. A part of her was a bit bummed by this since it meant there'd be virtually no challenge in beating it, given that its brains had long since turned to mush. Things like it were only dangerous in large numbers, since it allowed them to overwhelm their prey no matter how skilled they were.

Nevertheless, a kill was a kill, so she pulled out two kunai and charged her prey head on at a speed that was just below what could be considered the maximum for a non-ninja human. With her left kunai she cut deep into the neck of corpse, cutting halfway through then, with a one hundred and eighty degree spin, she used the right kunai to finish the decapitation. She could hear when the head hit the ground and, as she turned around, she saw the rest of the body wobble a bit before doing the same thing. A sigh of disappointment escaped her lips, though, since it was hardly a satisfying victory but she'd call it in just the same so it could be added to her score.

Reaching up, she pressed the transmit button on her throat microphone, "This is Hana. One zombie downed on Gellar Avenue."

"Good going, Hana." Anko-sensei said through her earpiece.

"Big deal! I just took down two zombies!" Ayeka declared with smug superiority. "Beat that Dog girl!"

"Um, guys, I think we might have a bit of an epidemic on our hands," came Xander's voice laced with a bit of concern. "I just took care of four zombies."

"What do you mean by 'an epidemic', Xander-kun?" Anko-sensei asked, sounding more serious than before.

"Having one or two of these things popping out of the ground wouldn't be anything too bad but seven at the same time just screams that something more Hellmouthy than usual is going on," Xander replied with the sound of movement in the background. "Maybe someone cast a spell or got their hands on some kind of magical doo-hickey. Whatever's going on, we need to put a stop to it sooner rather than later or we're going to get starring roles in our own personal 'Dawn of the Dead'."

It only took her a minute to understand the last comment.

One of the first things she'd learned when her team had started patrolling Sunnydale was that the town had over ten cemeteries. Even though they varied in size, there were quite a few graves there and, if even half of the corpses dug their way to the surface, things would get nasty. This would especially be the case if everyone the zombies killed joined their ranks but she figured that only a few of the locals would wind up zombified, given what Xander said about Sunnydale at night.

"Didn't all the people that got bit or scratched by the zombies turn into one of them?" Ayeka asked with a bit of concern in her voice. "That's not going to happen to us, is it?"

"I don't know and I sure as hell don't plan on finding out the hard way," Xander said as the sounds of movement stopped coming through her earpiece. "Best keep to mid-range battle for groups and only get in close when fighting one on one."

"Thanks for stating the obvious, Wannabe!" she sniped, a bit annoyed at the Uchiha stating the obvious.

"Whatever! Look, I hopped up to the tallest building close to me and I'm seeing a lot of corpse traffic in the streets," Xander said in a way that she could easily picture the half-roll of his eyes. "I'm at the corner of Malcom and Tam. From what I can see, it looks like they're all heading to the south east corner of the residential area. What about you guys?"

Pushing aside her annoyance, she leapt quickly to the top of the tallest building in the area and looked around to try and learn more. It wasn't long before she spotted more zombies scattered about the various streets within eyesight but the important thing in her mind was that she could tell that they were all heading in the same direction.

They were shambling towards the residential area of Sunnydale.

"Looks like someone's holding a meeting for decaying dead people, Wannabe. I got a bunch in my area and they're going to the same place as your pulse lacking pals," she said before she began roof hopping towards the most likely convergence point.

"Same here. What do you think they could be after?" Ayeka asked, sounding a little reluctant to face such disgusting foes.

"I don't know but I think it's in everyone's best interest to make sure they don't get it," Anko-sensei stated, sounding all business with the way she spoke. "I want everyone to try and get to the ahead of the zombie pack. Get to their destination before they do. Once we know where that is, we'll make our next move."

"Roger!" Wannabe said with prompt professionalism.

"Hai!" came Ayeka's response in almost the same tone.

"See ya there!" she said before turning to her canine partners. "Hagane! Ishina! Seirei! Let's go!"

All three of them barked in acknowledgement as they kept pace behind her and so she kept her eyes focused on the road ahead. Thinking about the battle that was likely to come, she felt a little annoyed when she realized that if they wound up having to deal with the zombies with all the houses around them, then Anko-sensei would be extra critical about how they fought. It was one thing to fight covertly at night, downtown or in the cemeteries where the odds of someone seeing them was limited, but fighting on someone's front lawn was bound to draw people to their windows.

_This is going to be a pain in the ass. _She thought with a mental groan of annoyance.

_**Xander's POV, Later**_

_Why am I not surprised!?_ He thought as his mind informed him of the most likely destination of the zombies.

It had been less than half an hour since he'd taken down his first zombie and since then, he'd been going through in his mind the various possibilities concerning the cause. Some people might think that a town sitting on the mouth to hell would always have zombie issues but the truth was that, unless someone summoned them or some other outside force empowered them, the dead stayed dead. When he'd learned that the other members of his team had also bumped into some as well, he'd known for sure that something had to be up. The big tell, though, was when he got a grasp for where they were all headed, he figured that someone was either calling them or sending them after something. Given the undead cat that Buffy had found, the odds were high that all the zombies were heading for the blonde Slayer's place. So either some new big bad was sending the walking corpses after her or they were being drawn to something that was located in that general area. He hoped that it was the latter since then all he'd have to do was find whatever was drawing in the deadites and then carry it away to someplace more isolated.

Dropping down from the rooftops he'd been hopping from, he went the rest of the way on foot, slicing up any zombies that were in his way. It was a few minutes later when he turned onto Buffy's street and saw her home but he could also see that several zombies were less than two blocks away from it and were getting closer.

"Hana, Ayeka, Anko-sensei! The zombies are trying to get to Buffy's place," he said into his throat mike. "I'll look around for anything that might be causing this. The rest of you should try and keep them away from the house."

"Do you what you gotta do, Xander-kun," Anko-sensei said through his earpiece. "We'll keep the not so departed away."

Nodding, he quickly removed his forehead protector as well as what ninja gear he had before dumping it all beneath some bushes. He didn't like being without any of it but taking it with him would only bring questions from Mrs. S and he didn't have any answers that even a four year old would believe. Slowing to a walk, he calmed his breathing and did his best to put on performance that would hopefully fool Joyce into thinking he was his normal self if she spotted him.

Using all the stealth tricks, he'd picked up he began to look about the Summers property, using the shadows for concealment when and where he could. On the surface he didn't really see anything all that different from what one would expect from a normal suburban home, but that didn't keep him from looking deeper on the second pass. While most of the big bads on the Hellmouth were about as subtle as a brick between the eyes, some of them could be quite clever when they had the right incentive. In the end he could find nothing on the outside of the home that even hinted at being connected to the rising of zombies.

_Must be inside somewhere, which means it's something that's alive enough to move or something that someone brought in within the last week or so. _He thought as he walked around to the front of the house and walked up to the front door.

"Nothing odd going on outside the house," he whispered through his throat mike. "I'm going inside to try and find the source there."

"Make it quick, Wannabe!" said Hana angrily, followed by sounds consistent with fighting. "Things are getting a little crowded!"

"Right," he said before knocking on the door before him.

It only took a few minutes before someone answered and he was glad to see that it was Buffy because it'd save him the trouble of coming up with a cover story.

"Xander? What are you doing here?" Buffy asked, looking a little surprised.

"You've got some unfriendly visitors incoming," he said while keeping an eye out for Mrs. S.

"Are they sunlight challenged or what?" she asked, instantly catching onto the subtle nature of the conversation.

"More like they're dead on their feet and have mush for brains," he replied while trying to figure out ways to convey what he needed to. "From what I can tell, they seem to think there's something interesting about your place. Don't know why though since everything's pretty normal on the outside. You guys add anything new inside?"

The blonde warrior woman took some time to think about that before the proverbial light bulb lit up in her eyes. "My mom did bring home some pieces from her gallery and hang them up."

"Then let's check them out, quick," he said after hearing what sounded like a soft impact. "My friends from the west are keeping the nobodies busy but it's only a matter of time before one of them gets through."

Buffy nodded and quickly led the way up the stairs.

"Buffy? Who's at the door?" came Mrs. S's voice from the kitchen.

"Just Xander, mom." Buffy replied as they reached the top of the stairs. "He just stopped by to pick up my history notes."

With the excuse put into place he followed the Slayer to the spare bedroom, where past experience told him the motherly matron stored things too big for the closets or too important to stash in the basement. With all due speed the door was opened and, a minute, later the two of them arrived at a large box containing a variety of knickknacks wrapped in newspaper and surrounded by packing peanuts. Being as careful as he could without slowing down, he began unwrapping each piece one by one, examining it for anything that tripped his Hellmouth senses.

"Any idea what we're looking for?" she asked as she helped him go through the box's contents.

"Nope, but something tells me we'll know it when we find it," he replied, laying another figure out of way.

It was about twenty minutes later that they reached the bottom of the box with not a single candidate left for the 'call the zombies to me' contest.

"Are there any others?" he asked, beginning to plan for worst case scenarios in his head.

"I don't kn- there's a mask!" Buffy declared before racing out of the room, "She hung it up in her room to add something new to it."

Following his friend, he quickly entered Mrs. S's room and almost immediately spotted the creepy looking mask hanging on the wall with its eyes glowing bright red.

"I'd say we just hit the jackpot," he said before pressing the transmit button on his neck. "Located the source of the problem. Proceeding with termination."

Buffy got to the mask first and almost immediately tried to use her superhuman strength to snap it in two but, no matter how hard she strained, the evil thing refused to so much as crack. Whether it was because of the material used in its creation or some sort of magical protection, it remained whole and was no doubt doing everything it could to get its minions to hurry up. After two minutes of Buffy trying to break it with brute force, he decided that it was time to try something a little more outside of the box. Reaching out with his right hand he made to take it from her so he could try something of his own but, just as he was about to touch it, he felt something unbelievably wrong coming from it, causing him to recoil out of instinct alone. Just like he'd seen surrounding the Third Hokage back before the Chuunin exams, there was an almost palatable aura of blackness surrounding the mask and, as crazy as it sounded, he could sense a sort of intelligence within it. He sensed it and somehow he felt as though it could perceive him as well to a certain degree.

"Xander? What's wrong?" Buffy asked, clearly having seen his unusual movements.

"N-nothing. The thing just creeps me out a bit," he said, pushing the uncertainty the dark item inspired in him, "I don't think we're going to be able to break it that way, Buff. We're going to need to try something a little different."

"What do you mean?" she asked, ceasing her efforts to snap the thing in two.

Slipping his right hand into his back pocket, he pulled out the only piece of ninja gear that he hadn't ditched beneath the bush: a single explosive note. While a little flashy, he'd made a point of keeping one on him at all times just in case he came up against something a kunai couldn't cut and a fist couldn't pound.

"Slap this on it and then get ready to toss it out the window," he said, passing her the note. "Peel off the back to expose the glue."

With a nod his friend of over two years took the rectangular piece of paper and, after following his instructions, went over to her mother's bedroom window to open it. Observing all this, he knew that he'd likely get a brief lecture about this from Anko-sensei but, hopefully, after having experienced Sunnydale Syndrome, she'd let him off with a slap on the wrist. As he watched the blonde throw the mask out the window as hard as she could, he waited until he figured that it'd reached the apex of the throw before letting out a pulse of chakra. With a bang the sky outside was temporarily lit up with orange light before fading back to the normal level of darkness. Walking up next to Buffy, he looked out the window and smiled as he saw bits of mask fall to the ground for thirty feet in every direction.

"Probable source of situation terminated. What's your guys' status?" he asked, transmitting to the rest of Team Anko.

"The hostiles have disappeared where I am. How about the rest of you?" asked Anko-sensei through the throat mike's ear piece.

"Same here," Ayeka replied, sounding happy that the disgusting zombies were finally gone.

"Sounds like vanishing acts all around." Hana said, sounding like she was still keeping her guard up for the time being.

"Mission accomplished, then. Let's head back to HQ. Sound good?"

There were agreements all around, even from Anko-sensei, and so he turned off the communications equipment... just in time too since not one minute later Joyce came into the room looking worried.

"Are you two alright?" she asked with concern in her voice.

"Yeah, we're good, Mrs. S," he replied, keeping his appearance casual for the most part with a bit of surprise mixed in. "I guess someone thought it was a good idea to play with a cherry bomb out there."

"A cherry bomb?" Joyce asked sounding unsure about buying that story.

"Yeah! It think I caught a glimpse of someone running around the corner right after the bang." Buffy replied, backing up his statement. "Didn't get a good look, though."

With two people supporting the same story, Mrs. S finally caved in and accepted it into her mind as being what happened. While he was somewhat unhappy that so many people clung to denial and rationalized away the supernatural, he was grateful for the times that it worked in the Scooby gang's favor. It allowed them to avoid explanations that would not be of the fun to go through and keep a measure of the secrecy they needed in order to do their jobs.

"Well, that person better hope that I never find them because if I do, they're going to get an earful I can promise you that!" Mrs. S declared, sounding annoyed at the irresponsible act.

"I pity the guy already!" he said with a bit of humor in his voice, "Well I'd better get back home. Got some notes to copy and go through."

"Alright then. You have a safe walk home, Xander." Joyce said as she turned around to head back downstairs.

"Will do, Mrs S!" he said even though he very much doubted he'd encounter anything dangerous enough for him to take it seriously.

After all, even with a ban on ninjutsu, that still left genjutsu and taijutsu, as well making him strong enough to handle most demons with ease.

It was at that point that he realized that he'd probably just jinxed them all and caused Fate to nudge towards them a threat powerful enough to give even a trained shinobi trouble.

_**The Apartment of the Chinese Amazons, Less Than an Hour Later, Lotion's POV**_

"So, how did you fair tonight, ladies?" asked her mother as she and Perfume entered the apartment.

"Not good, mother. Future husband and teammates defeat zombies before we could make entrance," she replied with a mixture of disappointment and admiration.

While she was disappointed that she hadn't gotten a chance to show her future husband how good a wife she would be, she admired that he had been able to defeat the zombies so soon after they'd first shown up. It made her all the more sure that he would be the perfect husband for her and gave her yet another reason to work as hard as she could to claim him. Perfume no doubt felt the same way and so, as soon as they both had time, she'd work with her fellow amazon to devise a new means of bending the Uchiha to their will.

One of the first things that they'd need to do would be to find a way to pin him down so he could at least hear their arguments. While they had managed to ensure that in class, where they always sat by him, it was outside of the classroom that they'd only sporadically managed to speak with him. Almost every time he saw them coming, he would run and, while pursuit was always attempted, it was difficult to do so without causing a commotion or knocking people over. They tried to corner him outside of the school but he always managed to disappear after the second or third time he succeeded in breaking their line of sight. No doubt he was employing some of his ninja techniques but she already had a plan in mind to counter them. Observation of his actions since returning to Sunnydale had revealed to her that he never used his shinobi techniques when there were strangers around. She didn't know the reason for this restriction but it would provide both her and Perfume with a potent tool to use in their crusade to make him their husband.

All they needed now was to come up with a way to keep him in areas where there were quite a few people around. If they could manage that, he would not be able to use his techniques and whatever he had left would be well within what they could counter without making a spectacle of themselves.

"Well, don't let it bother you," Deo said from her chair on the other side of the room. "I've learned enough about this town to know that there's always **something** on the horizon. Just keep your eyes open and I'm sure another opportunity will appear."

"Hai!" both she and Perfume said bowing towards the elder Amazon.

"Now you should both turn in for the night," her mother said as she turned the page in the book she was reading. "You have school tomorrow and it wouldn't present a very impressive picture to your future husband if you fell asleep in the middle of class."

"Hai," she said before she headed for the bathroom to take a quick shower.

Once she was inside and the door finished shutting behind her she began to strip out of her clothes while at the same time wondering about the future that lay before her. In her mind there were two paths her life could take and one was infinitely more preferable to other as far as she was concerned.

As she turned on the water and got it to the temperature she liked, she thought on the first path, in which she and Perfume succeeded in their mission to claim the Uchiha as their husband. Thinking about it never failed to put a smile on her face because, unlike most of the men she knew, Xander was far from average. He was a skilled warrior, a Konoha ninja, who had managed to defeat four Amazons without any help at all. True, they had thought him no more than a stranger when they'd fought him all those weeks ago and so had not gone all out, but in her mind it would not have made much difference if they had. She believed this because she was fairly certain that Xander hadn't been giving it his all either, since it did not seem to be in his nature to kill strangers even if those people were trying to kill him.

That, of course, was not taking into account his bloodline limit ability: Sharingan.

While information did not flow freely out of the shinobi region, tales of the famous eyes found only in the Uchiha clan had reached her village nonetheless. Among all the various kekkai genkai, Sharingan was considered to be one of the most powerful and, as of five years ago, the most rare thanks to the decimation of the Uchiha clan. It was with this ability that Xander had been able to defeat the four of them and she was sure he would only become more skilled in its use as he got older. Once he completely mastered it, he would be a force to be reckoned with and, as his wife, she would be the envy of every other Amazon in the village.

Of course she was not blind to the more practical side of things, unlike Perfume, who focused on how much 'fun' there was to be had.

She knew that, given the current state of the Uchiha clan, she would likely play a vital role in repopulating it and that meant probably more than one period of pregnancy. While the act of getting pregnant would no doubt be bliss, she knew that the rest of it would be more difficult than most young ladies realized. Even with Xander-sama helping her out as best he could, it would be an experience filled to the brim with pros and cons that would wear her down. Then, of course, there came the trials of raising the children and she'd seen what could happen when certain brats got out of hand back at the village. Even those who did their best to keep their kids on a short leash had difficulties.

Nevertheless, she knew that, without exception, every parent in her village viewed their children as the most precious things in their lives.

She would be no different.

However, as she got into the shower, she had to consider the second path that existed for her and that was Xander rejecting her and Perfume outright. She didn't want to think about it but she didn't believe in deluding herself and ignoring a possibility just because she didn't like it. All three of them had acknowledged from the beginning that the Uchiha came from a different culture with different rules and beliefs. If the laws of their tribe and his beliefs turned out to be completely incompatible, then no amount of seduction and cunning strategies would bring him around to their point of view. Reason only worked when the other side was open to compromise and possessed flexibility mentally. If Uchiha Alexander remained firm in his opposition to marrying her and Perfume, despite what might happen in the future, their shame would be as great as the joy they might have experienced.

Among the Chinese Amazon tribe, there were few shames greater than being rejected by the man who had defeated you in battle. It was not shameful to lose to a man from outside of the tribe if he proved to be a strong warrior, but it was considered to be terrible indeed to be rejected by that same man. It implied that there was something truly lacking with the Amazon, whether it be in appearance, skill or personality, leading to her reputation taking a serious nosedive. Others would look down on her and it was not unheard of for the Amazon to be reassigned to a less visible role within the tribe in order to hide the shame her failure carried with it. Her friends and family might also be affected by her failure, straining the bonds between them to the breaking point or even cutting them outright.

She would **NOT** let that happen to her or Perfume! She would work with her fellow Amazon to insure their success and anything or **anyone** who got in their way would be dealt with swiftly and permanently.

After her shower, she took the time to inspect her appearance in order to make sure everything looked the way it should, put on her robe and began to make her way to her room. As she passed by Perfume's room, she heard a sound that made her stop and pause, since it didn't match the night the two of them had just had. Normally when things went poorly on a mission, the two of them would either swiftly go to sleep or find distractions to take their minds off of their worries. However what she was hearing was not consistent with past experiences so, out of curiosity, she opened the door carefully just a crack while making as little noise as possible. What she saw when she looked through the crack made her eyes widen in surprise for a moment before rolling them at her sister Amazon's eccentric antics.

_I should've known she'd do something like this._ She thought before resuming her walk to her room. _Whenever she gets particularly interested in a guy, she __**always**__ does this!_

It was one of the reasons why most of the other Amazons of their tribe tended to be wary whenever Perfume was around and why she herself kept an eye out for 'The Signs'. Whenever the indicators told her that something particularly potent was about to happen, she made sure to find someplace else to be. It wasn't that Perfume was a bad person, much less a bad Amazon, but it was her little quirks that made people hesitant to get closer.

Like all things, though, quirks could be endured and dealt with in such a manner so as to not destroy a friendship.

_Although, just to be on the safe side, I'll take a look through her room when she's out to make sure there's nothing there that could ruin our chances with Xander-sama. _She thought, opening the door to her room. _You can never be too careful in these situations._

If during the course of the search she found something 'useful' when it came to improving her own mood… well, it went against her mother's own teachings to pass up an opportunity.

_**Ayeka's POV, Eight Days Later, Late Afternoon, Team Anko HQ**_

_Dammit! Those two bitches are getting a little too close to __**MY**__ Xander! _She thought as she watched Xander walk through the front gate of their home outside of Sunnydale. _I have to take control of the situation before they manage to get ahead of me!_

While she had managed to spend time with him within their own home and while out on patrol, she hadn't been able to do anything to advance her romantic agenda. There'd been just too much to do in bringing their HQ back up to snuff and keeping the local demons on the defensive for her to plan anything, much less put it into motion. It had been her plan for a while to wait until she could truly devote herself to her dream but, with those Amazon sluts gaining ground, she feared that if she waited any longer it'd be too late. The question was what could she do to gain a respectable lead over her rivals while not scaring her prey away. Her mind entertained images of sneaking into his bed wearing a robe barely big enough to leave things to the imagination but she decided it was too early for that. Perhaps after she'd succeeded in convincing him to make out with her in a serious manner it'd be time for that but not now.

Now was the time for something steamy yet subtle.

In an instant an idea came to her that caused her to grin, then smile and then giggle at how cunning she was. Slipping back into the house, she immediately went to her room and, after locking the door, began to look through her clothes for just the right combination. She needed something that showed off her supreme beauty but wouldn't be so blatantly sexy that Xander-sama would suspect something was up. She immediately discarded skirts or dresses because, while they were feminine, she'd already done them enough that they'd lost their impact. That left pants, so she immediately took out the black leather ones that were laced up on the sides of her legs rather than the usual buttons and zippers. Once she had that done, she had to choose between a shirt that showed off her midriff or something that left her shoulders bare, since doing both would be a bit too sexy. In the end she chose something that left her shoulders bare, since it'd serve the double purpose of also showing off some cleavage and she knew Xander-sama was a boob man. In the time since she'd first met him, she'd been able to tell earlier on that anything below a C-cup would barely get a passing glance, whereas if it ranged between a C-cup and the infamous double Ds, his eyes would linger.

She **knew** she fell into that category.

Unfortunately so did those Amazon bitches, but she was confident that while they might be similar in size, she had far more experience in how to properly showcase them. Growing up in butch warrior women country all their lives, they probably knew next to nothing about how to get the attention of a **real** man like Xander-sama. The only point working against her, though, was the fact that they'd exhibited signs of being willing to do anything, at any speed, to get what they wanted. They had little hesitation in raising their game to the next level if the one they were currently on failed to produce the desired results and she was unsure of just where they'd draw the line in their actions. She herself was committed to claiming the head of the Uchiha clan as her husband and was willing to go quite far indeed to make her dream a reality. At the same time, though, there were certain lines she refused to cross as a matter of pride and honor. She would not turn into some sort of sex slave or slut. She would retain her strength both physically and mentally. She would not compromise her dreams and ambitions.

With that in mind she changed into the clothes she selected, slipped on a pair of comfortable shoes and secreted away a few pieces of ninja gear just in case. Looking into the full length mirror, she looked at herself from all angles before strutting towards the door to her room, intent on putting her plan into motion. Walking to the kitchen where she knew her prey would begin, she began to formulate just the right combination of words to get Uchiha Xander to agree to her course of action without tipping him off. Much like some of the riskier missions back home, success often depended on carefully maneuvering the various people involved into just the right position before going into the kill. One mistake, one flaw, and the entire operation could fall apart.

Arriving at her destination, she saw the familiar sight of Xander fixing himself a snack as he always did after school and, with only a single mental breath, began her mission for this evening.

"Hey Xander-sama! How were your classes today?" she asked, keeping her voice casual for the time being.

"Boring as usual," Xander replied, sounding like he was tolerating school rather than going because he wanted to. "I have a feeling I'd have liked classes at the Konoha Academy better."

"Don't be too sure about that," she said, going to the fridge to get something small to eat. "It wasn't all jutsus and kunai at the Academy. There was plenty of math and history."

"But it all had something to do with becoming a good ninja, right?" he asked, sounding a little uncertain about his position.

"For the most part, yeah, but that didn't make them fun to learn," she replied after finding what she wanted. "So, did you get a lot of homework dumped on you?"

"Nope. For once the teachers cut us some slack," he replied after finishing the assembly of his snack. "Nothing's due until Monday."

"Then you'd be free tonight?" she asked in a way that wouldn't arouse suspicions.

"For the most part, yeah. Why?" he asked after taking a bite of his snack.

"I was wondering if you'd go to the Bronze with me." she asked, keeping the innocent tone in her voice.

This caused him to choke on his second bite and, almost out of reflex, she slapped her hand against his back to knock whatever got caught in his throat loose. It took three before he seemed to recover but then he looked at her with an expression of surprise and wariness before raising an eyebrow inviting her to continue.

"Don't worry, Xander-sama. While I still plan to be your wife, this is going to be training as much as anything else." This was the clever part of her plan.

"What do you mean?" he asked with curiosity and a bit of wariness.

"You've fought ninja's coming at you head on and seen them walking down the street," she explained, phrasing her words just right, "but there's one way you don't have any experience in: ninjas who're in disguise. There'll be times when ninjas will disguise themselves as perfectly ordinary people and they won't show themselves until they're ready to strike."

She could tell he was thinking about it and probably imagining various scenarios that he might experience in the future, so she pushed her luck a little more. "In situations like those, it's vital to be able to figure out who are the normal people and who are the ninja as soon as possible. You do this by being able to spot the little 'tells' in their body language and the odd things about their clothes. That's what we'll be practicing at the Bronze, except instead of looking for hidden ninja we'll be trying to find vampires. Most probably wouldn't know subtle if it bit them in the ass but there's bound to be a handful that know a thing or two about blending in."

"True," he said with a nod. "Alright. I'm game. When you want to leave?"

"How about in an hour?" she asked before waiting for his reply.

"Sounds good. That'll probably be when people will start showing up and we'll have a time to pick out the best spots to keep an eye on everyone," he replied as he finished his snack. "Standard anti-vamp gear gonna be needed?"

"Only what you can conceal in your casual clothes," she replied as she finished her own snack. "Remember, we have orders to keep a low profile while we're here."

"Not a problem. Me and the Scoobies learned pretty quick how to hide stuff on us when we were around other people who weren't in the know."

"Then we'll meet by the front gate in an hour. See ya then, Xander-sama." She waited all of five minutes before breaking out in a victorious smile and chuckling at how things were going to go from there on out. The stage had been set and all she'd have to do was ease him into the right mood after picking out just the right spot in the club in order to achieve the true purpose of their outing.

A make out session that would prove to those Amazon sluts just **who** was ahead of **whom**.

_**The Bronze, Two Hours Later, Buffy's POV**_

"Xander doesn't have a clue what's heading his way." she whispered as she watched the young man and woman across the room get closer.

"Not a clue." Willow whispered in agreement with a half-smile on her face.

It had only been half an hour or so ago that the two of them had entered The Bronze with the intent of relaxing and dancing for a few hours before she went out on patrol. However it had only taken a few minutes for her to spot Xander and Ayeka sitting in one of the corner booths on the upper level, the ninja girl's intentions clear to her trained feminine eyes. It had only taken a little persuasion after that to convince Willow to find a seat that would allow the two of them to observe the little drama without being immediately spotted. It had become something of a source of amusement for the two of them over the last few weeks to see Xander deal with the advances of not one but three beautiful young women. She enjoyed it a little more than Willow did for reasons that were obvious to anyone that knew her but it was still fun enough that the redhead smile and laughed from time to time due to what she saw.

They even had a betting pool going on in secret among the Scoobies as to how long Xander would hold out and which of the three young women would finally win. Her money was on Ayeka simply because the young blonde ninja was going after Xander for the right reasons using the right methods. The member of Team Anko was acting like a girl in love and was pursuing the man she favored using methods that had been used by women for millennia.

Giles, after much prodding, said that he favored Perfume and Lotion in the battle for Xander's hand in marriage. When asked to elaborate, the Watcher stated that not only did the women from the warrior tribe have superiority in numbers but also that for them marrying the Uchiha was a matter of honor for them. As a result, he believed that they would have more incentive to emerge victorious than a simple teenager would with their ideas of love. That, of course, had gotten him a thorough glaring at from both her and Willow but he never really backed down from his position.

Personally, she thought the Amazons were, at best, deluded fools or, at worst, were people who'd been raised in a way that had probably been started by some woman who'd been abused to the point of being broken. How else could you explain the creation of a law that actually caused them to latch onto whichever man happened to kick their asses? She knew that Giles had explained it as something to do with the whole female warrior society stuff but all she saw was a desire to cling to strength with no consideration for love. After all, what if the person who beat one of the Amazons turned out to be a complete jackass or a criminal? Was the losing warrior woman supposed to just endure being treated like crap just for the sake of her tribe? Whatever the case, it pretty much went against everything she'd ever heard about societies with warrior women. True, her knowledge came from Xena and Hercules but it was still what she believed was the way an Amazon should act. Proud, honorable and determined to prove no matter what that they didn't need a man to survive.

Not at all like Perfume, Deo and Lotion.

Willow hadn't said who she'd put her money on but, every time she was asked, the redhead would smile in a way that someone often did when they knew something that no one else did. The only thing her friend **would** say was that she was a fan of the underdog and that it'd be fun to see everyone's faces when Xander finally made a choice.

She'd tried to figure it out for almost two days straight before quitting out of frustration.

Looking across the room to see Ayeka finally get into Xander's personal space, she wondered if the girl would manage to move things to the next level tonight. It'd be possible since the two of them had been together for a couple months already and that'd move them past the uncomfortable early stages. Then again, Xander did have a habit of not wanting to change labels on people once he'd given them one, so it'd depend if Ayeka was now just a 'friend' or a 'teammate'. If that happened, Ayeka might fall into the same situation Willow had and then it'd pretty much be all over with unless something was done to obliterate the category she'd been placed in.

_Huh? I wonder what's going on?_ She thought as she noticed both ninja suddenly become all business.

Seeing the duo look in a specific direction, she turned her gaze that way in order to find out what had caught their attention. At first she couldn't see anything other than the usual mix of teens and young adults getting their groove on, dancing in front of the stage. It was a minute later that her instincts caused her to lock onto one couple in particular and, after that, she knew what was off about them. One was obviously a vampire, with its outdated fashion sense and the way he was trying to put the moves on the dark haired girl he was dancing with. As for said girl, she was an obvious wild child who dressed to make guys go into meltdown just by looking at her. Leather pants and a tank top designed to cling to her curves as she swung her body to the beat of the music. The girl probably had no idea she was being scoped out to be the vampire's meal and wouldn't know the truth until it was too late to do anything but scream.

"Looks like I'm going to get some early slayage in tonight," she said as she got out of her seat and began to make her way to the vampire.

With a little bit of luck she'd be able to entice it away from its current prey, get it outside and then dust it when the two of them were far enough away from the club. Looking out of the corner of her eye, she could see that both Xander and Ayeka had spotted her but all it took was a single look from her to convey that she'd take care of this. For a moment it looked like the former would protest but, with a rough nod, he eased back into his seat to await her return. Turning her attention back to the vampire, her concern went up a notch as she saw that the bloodsucker was already leading its prey off of the dance floor and towards one of the side entrances of the club. Picking up the pace, she moved through the crowd of teenagers with a bit more roughness than usual and, once she cleared the obstacle, she moved for the door that her prey was now passing through.

As soon as she was outside, she looked back and forth for any sign that would tell her which direction they'd gone in. The sound of violence to the left told her what she needed to know and she ran flat out towards where she believed the vampire would be. It was a minute later that she turned into an alley and saw something she hadn't been expecting: the girl she'd predicted would be down on the ground begging for her life was in fact **fighting** the vampire.

The strange girl wasn't having much luck, though, and had probably only lasted this long because the vampire was amused with her efforts. The young woman's fighting style could best be described as barroom brawling as it relied on brute strength and little tricks, but she knew that such moves could only carry someone so far. Sooner or later the very real gap between what the vampire was capable of and what the girl was capable of would cause the battle to end with the death of the latter.

_That's __**not**__ going to happen!_

As soon as she got in range, she delivered a kick to the vampire, knocking him away from the girl and then followed up with a combo attack to knock him to the ground. Moving in for the kill, she pulled a stake from inside her jacket and brought it down towards the fang face's chest but the mosquito managed to dodge it at the last second. Delivering a kick of its own, it dazed her long enough to get back to its feet and get into a proper fighting stance. She had to grin at this since staying to fight pretty much labeled this vampire as new to town, since the local bloodsuckers knew what she looked like as well as how a fight with her often ended in death for them.

"I don't know who you are, blondie, but I'm gonna enjoy sucking you dry!" the vampire said angrily, its eyes glowing malevolently yellow.

"Blah, blah, blah! Is that really the best you can come up with?" she asked, sounding thoroughly unimpressed. "Really, if you want to be some badass vampire, you really rehearse your lines better. Too bad you won't get the chance to!"

With that she lunged at him and began to lay down a series of blows that quickly showed where the leech stood when compared to her. Using some of the moves Giles had shown her, she managed to trick the bloodsucker into exposing a vital spot and then, with speed no normal human could follow, much less match, she slammed the wooden stake into the thing's undead heart. With the standard look of shock that all vamps tended to wear moments before they turned to dust, she watched the undead monster go poof before the wind scattered its remains. Turning around, she saw the girl who'd almost become vamp chow getting back to her feet, looking a bit wobbly but that was going away quickly enough.

"You okay?" she asked concerned that she might need to get the girl to a hospital.

"I'm fine! I had that fang-face right where I wanted'em." The girl said, obviously trying to put on a 'tough girl' attitude.

"Oh, yeah! I'm sure it woulda been all too easy to stake him with a concussion and a few broken bones." she said, trying to make the teenager see that she'd been in real danger of dying.

"I was **FAKING** it! Vamps like him get cocky when they're going in for the kill. Figured when he bent down to bite, I'd be able to slip this right between the ribs," the girl said, pulling out a sharp looking wooden knife. "Not all of us can have the breaks you got, B."

This instantly put her on edge as the statement implied that this girl knew more than a random stranger should.

"Do I know you?" she asked as she tried to place the face of the person before her.

"Nah, not really," the young woman replied casually. "The name's Faith. I'm a potential Slayer."

_**An Hour Later, Sunnydale High School, The Library, Scooby HQ**_

_**Anko's POV**_

"So what's a potential Slayer?" she asked from her chair as the rest of them looked to Rupert Giles.

"Well, that is to say… at any given time on the planet there are a handful of young women of the appropriate age that could become the next Slayer," replied the Watcher, obviously taking time to censor the information. "The Council employs a considerable amount of resources to locate them and then prepare them for the possibility that they might be Called."

This was not unknown to those back in Konoha and it was one of the reasons why the Konoha hospital performed a series of secret tests on all newborn girls. Part of it was to give the village as much advance warning of the Watchers Council sending a representative so that they could isolate the potential Slayer, thus limiting what the old men could learn from her. The other part was because some of the more militant factions, such as Danzou's group, were very interested in acquiring a Slayer of their own. True, the treaty between the men of the UK and the ninja villages insisted that, should a Slayer be Called from within the shinobi region, that she be handed over immediately but she knew that the document was little more than ink on paper to some. After all, if the stories she'd heard were true, Slayers had certain abilities that would prove invaluable if the young woman could be turned into a ninja.

So far it hadn't happened, though.

"So Faith's one of them?" Xander asked, looking between his Sunnydale mentor and the newcomer.

"Yes. The information she has provided matches that which a potential would have and I knew her Watcher from my academy days," Giles replied with a nod. "I had heard that she had been reassigned to Boston five years ago but I did not know why until now. Has Diana come to Sunnydale with you?"

"Nah. She went off on some Watcher retreat for a few weeks," Faith said, leaning against the library counter. "Didn't feel like sticking around Boston so I hopped on a bus here. D told me some pretty wild stories about you guys, so I thought I'd come see if any of 'em were true."

_There it is. _She thought immediately reading between the lines to get at the truth.

It was something that she'd picked up on the moment she'd laid eyes on the girl and twice before it'd spiked while she was watching. She had a hunch as to what was going on but, for the time being, she'd wait to see if the teenager slipped up a little more and provided actual evidence that she could use.

"Really? She's quite fortunate then since the retreat is by invitation only and is considered to be quite the experience." Giles said before muttering, "some people have all the luck."

"So what's with the newbies?" Faith asked, looking at her before turning to Ayeka and Hana. "D said that B only had two or three other people helpin' her."

"Yes, well, there have been some recent developments that you should be aware of," Rupert replied after taking his glasses off to clean them a bit. "Ms. Mitarashi and her students are ninja from the hidden village of Konoha. They've been assigned here by their leader to defend the Hellmouth and report back on local demonic activity."

"So? What's that got to do with me?" Faith asked, sounding uncertain about the point the older man was trying to make.

"The terms of the treaty between their village and the Council state that whomever is the first to assign an agent to a given area grants that party governing control over what goes on there," Giles explained, being quite clear in the way he spoke. "Konoha was the first to place someone in Sunnydale and so they were allowed to dictate which members of the Council were permitted to enter their territory. Their leader specified that only myself and Buffy were to be allowed within Sunnydale city limits and that any attempts to insert others would not be looked kindly upon."

"But no one sent me. I came here on my own." Faith said, sounding like she had a greater understanding of the situation now.

"Perhaps so, but this will still require a measure of consideration on the part of both the organizations involved. Whether or not you'll be allowed to remain here until your Watcher returns from the retreat will depend on them," Rupert stated diplomatically as he put his hands in his pockets. "Still, I suppose this could wait until morning. Do you have a place to stay, Faith?"

"Yeah I got a room at the local motel on the east side of town," Faith replied looking… relieved.

"That would not be a wise place to stay. Since motels and establishments like it are, by definition, temporary residences, they do not offer the same protection as a house or an apartment," said the Watcher as he moved over to the library counter. "I have a guest bedroom at my flat that you can use during your stay here. It's not very large but it should suffice."

"I don't need charity, G. I'll only be here a little while and if some vamps decide to pay me a visit, I'll use what D taught me and dust them." Faith said, sounding resistant at the idea.

"Faith, you've got some moves, I saw that in the alley, but at best you could probably take on one or two newbie vamps. If more than two came at you or if they were a couple years old, you've be vamp chow," Buffy said, lending her opinion to the discussion. "Like you said, I got a couple breaks being the Slayer and one of them is I can take a lot of abuse and be fine the next day. You can't."

"Besides that, this is not charity, Faith. Diana is a dear friend of mine and it simply would not do for me to be rude and allow you to stay at one of those flea-infested motels." Giles said sincerely as he looked at the potential Slayer.

This seemed to reduce Faith's reluctance somewhat, since the older man's actions were now classified as manners rather than some form of charity.

"Well, now that all that is out of the way, would you like to get the nickel and dime tour, Faith?" Xander asked as he stood up and took a few steps towards the girl. "I can promise laughs and fun aplenty, along with some embarrassing stories about Buffy."

"Well, with an offer like that, how can I say no?" Faith said with a fun loving smile. "Lead the way!"

"Xander! You're not telling her anything without my okay first!" Buffy said, getting out of her chair and falling in behind her possible future successor.

Willow and Oz joined the group, causing the group to grow until only she, Giles, Hana and Ms. Calendar were left in the library. She waited until she was certain that the teenagers were outside of hearing range before voicing what she was fairly certain that Hana knew as well.

"She's hiding something."

"Damn right she is. Smelt the lie on her the second she opened her mouth," Hana said in agreement with a bit of a scowl on her face. "Question is, what's she hiding?"

"Don't you think you're being a tad paranoid, Ms. Anko? I will admit that the girl is not the most open of individuals but that does not necessarily mean that she's hiding something important from us." Giles said, sounding like he thought they were overreacting.

"If it was her just putting on the tough girl act, I wouldn't be worried, Mr. Giles," she said as her mind went through the possibilities, "but my years of training and experience tell me it's something else. Something that scares her."

"Yeah. Smelt the fear on her, too," Hana said before rising from her chair. "If I had to guess I think she's running from someone or, given this town, probably **something**."

"Considering what she's probably seen since she hooked up with her Watcher, it's probably not something we want sneaking up on us," she said before coming to a decision. "Hana, I want you to take your girls and do a sweep of the town. Look for anything that suggests there's someone new in town looking for Faith."

"Consider it done, Anko-sensei!" Hana declared before heading out the back entrance to the library.

_While she's doing that, I should probably do some checking myself,_ she thought, looking over at the phone. _See if there've been any waves made that might beheading this way._

_**The Next Day, Sunnydale High School, Boys Locker Room, Afternoon, Xander's POV**_

Darkness.

There were a variety of different forms it could take, as well as any number of different flavors, but they all represent something hidden, something not of the light, thus they are not easily perceivable unless you train yourself to see them. When speaking of darkness on the outside, it could mean anything from a dark alley to beings who represent the worst qualities and aspects of the world; criminals, bullies and people who think nothing of ruining the lives of others could be said to represent those qualities.

Then there was the type of darkness that existed within a person and took on the form of their darker emotions, as well as their more traumatic memories. There are people who said that every human ever born has within them an equal amount of good and evil, with free will and circumstances being what determined their future. Some can choose to give into their darker emotions, their baser desires, while others lived lives where those darker emotions were a necessity in order to survive. Others can have evil done unto them that scarred their very souls, injured it, causing them to look at the world as a dark place that would kill them unless they became strong.

Free will and circumstance determined how much free reign darkness was permitted where these two types are concerned.

For the first fourteen years of his life, the darkness was his home and the so-called parents who lived there with him. Both made his life miserable but in different ways. His step-father made his life miserable by beating the crap out of him on a fairly regular basis and by always telling him what a worthless waste of space he was. His mother, on the other hand, made it miserable by being a doormat to his step-father and only offering pathetic half-excuses afterwards. It was often so bad that he found other places to sleep and took any opportunity that came along to stay away from the two of them. Over the years, his friends became his family and a source of light that he used to ward off the darkness and fool himself into believing his life wasn't all that bad. It didn't always work but his resolve to become a better man than his step-father was usually enough to make up the difference.

Since Buffy came to Sunnydale, the darkness took on new shapes in the form of demons and black magic users bent on harming humanity in any number of ways. True, he'd entertained the idea of fighting by her side since to him she was a comic book superhero come to life but it wasn't until he'd lost Jesse that his resolved had become as hard as diamond. From that point on he'd made the choice that he would fight the darkness wherever it showed itself, no matter what the risk to himself.

It was his familiarity with the more human side of darkness that had tipped him off to the truth about Faith and what she was hiding beneath her tough girl attitude. She hadn't given out any obvious tells but he could read between the lines and saw the more subtle clues that likely slipped right past the others. The way she always tried to put out an air of toughness and strength. The way she made it look like nothing fazed her and that everything was just fine with her. More than anything, though, was the flicker of fear he saw in her eyes along with the way she tensed up every single time the conversation starting drifting towards the past, as well as family. Whenever it got a little too close, she always made some offhand comment and changed the topic of conversation to something that had more to do with them than her.

It was at those times that he felt as though he was looking at someone who'd experienced a life similar to his own.

It was this conclusion that put him where he was at the moment and that was thinking up ways to help Faith battle the darkness in whatever form it took. When he was growing up, Jesse and Willow were there to help him but, looking at the girl from Boston, he had a feeling that she didn't have close friends like that. That is what brought him to where he was at the moment: in the locker room getting out of his gym clothes while thinking about how he could make their newest ally a friend. He knew that once her Watcher came back from the retreat, Faith would have to go back to Boston but that didn't mean they couldn't become friends. With tech that existed, there were any number of ways to stay in touch and, with the money he'd come into as the new head of the Uchiha clan, he could make a side trip every once in a while to visit her if he wanted. He might even see if there was any way that Giles could get the Boston duo reassigned to Sunnydale or at least someplace a little closer so that getting together wouldn't be a problem. It probably wouldn't work since decisions like that would have to be made by those old farts in the UK but it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot.

"What happened to you, Harris?" came a voice from behind him as he took off his gym shorts. "You get your ass kicked into a dumpster or something?"

With a sigh he turned to see Larry walking up, some of his jock friends with him and all of them had the classic bully smiles on their face. Had this been a year ago, he'd have been looking for a way to run off or slip away from them but much had changed in his life. He was no longer just a teenager who fought by the side of the Slayer. He was now Uchiha Alexander, head of the Uchiha clan, a Konoha chuunin shinobi assigned to the Hellmouth by the Fifth Hokage herself. Kicking Larry's ass would be all too easy for him and, knowing this, he didn't feel at all threatened by the football player, nor did he really think that the man was worth his attention.

"No, but unless you want to be the one tossed in a dumpster, I suggest you find someone else to pester 'cause I'm really not in the mood for your caveman antics." That said, he turned back to his locker so he could finish getting dressed in his normal clothes.

Feeling a hand clamp down on his bare shoulder, he mentally sighed as he realized that he wouldn't be able to get away that easily.

"Just who do you think you are, Harris?!" Larry asked angrily as he spun his target around. "You trying to start something!?"

"You'd better hope not, Lar, because if I was planning on starting something with you, your football career would be ended by the time I was done," he replied before jerking his shoulder loose from the caveman's grip.

"Pretty big talk from someone who needed Summers to bail him out last Halloween," Larry said, stepping forward until they were nose to nose.

"Things change, Lar. People change. I might have needed her help before but I don't anymore," he said, putting a bit of threat into his voice. "I could take you and your pet thugs down by myself without even breaking a sweat now. So I'm going to give you one last chance: turn around and walk away."

"Why don't you **make ME!**" Larry said before throwing a punch that was no doubt intended to knock him off his feet.

A step to the side and all it hit was air.

Another punch was thrown but it was no more successful than the last.

This went on for several minutes before Larry's friends got involved and started throwing punches of their own. While this did force him to start blocking a few blows, it wasn't much more of a challenge than before. There was no style, no technique, to the attacks and it looked like most of them had been self-taught, so there were numerous flaws in them. He was quickly getting bored, though, and his next class would be starting soon, so he wanted to tie all this up as quickly as possible. Fortunately one of Larry's goons provided him with another reason to tie this up quickly when they pulled a metal bat from a nearby open locker. Seeing this, he decided that it was time to put the three in their place.

Waiting until the goon with the bat took his first swing, he caught the bat with his right hand before redirecting it towards Larry, hitting the jock in the chest and knocking him back into some lockers. Not wasting time, he executed a quick kick at the wrists of the one holding the bat, forcing the idiot to drop it before turning around to catch a punch thrown by the remaining thug one handed. Applying a little enhanced strength, he couldn't help but smile a bit as the moron began wincing in pain at the pressure that was being exerted on his fist. Giving one final good squeeze, he let the guy go before turning back to Larry with a no nonsense look on his face.

"I trust I've made my point, Larry?" he asked, implying without words that if the football player tried to take things further, it could be dangerous to his health.

"Fine. I'll let you off easy today, Harris." Larry replied, trying to sound like this wasn't a loss for him. "Next time it'll take more than a couple of lucky moves to save your ass!"

"Whatever!" he said turning away from the idiot and back towards his locker.

He was just about to reach for his shirt when an odd sound reached his ears, causing him to freeze in his tracks. Thinking on it for a moment, it'd definitely been electronic in nature but he was unable to precisely place where he'd heard it before. Turning to one of the many air vents on the ceiling, he was fairly certain that the sound had come from there but that didn't really help him figure out the cause of the noise. He'd never heard it before in the locker room but it could just have been the school showing its age. After all, while he might not have known how old the big the vents were, he seriously doubted that anyone could make their way through them without making a fair bit of noise.

With a shrug of indifference, he went back to getting dressed since he had more important things to be concerned about than some odd noise he couldn't put a name to.

_**That Evening, Sunnydale High School Library, Anko's POV**_

"So what's the what, G-man? Anko-sensei?" Xander asked from his place in the room. "Why the big Scoobies Assemble call?"

"Ms. Mitarashi and I were a bit… suspicious after hearing Faith's reasons for being here," Mr. Giles replied, sounding troubled as he spoke. "As a result, she, Ms. Inuzuka and I began to investigate the various aspects of what we'd been told. What we discovered is somewhat… disturbing."

"What'd you find out?" Buffy asked, sounding interested in the conversation.

"The first thing we found out was that Faith's Watcher isn't away at a retreat," she replied in a tone normally used for serious mission briefings. "She's dead."

"WHAT!?" exclaimed those who weren't involved in the investigation.

"I understand your surprise. I felt something similar when I found out," Mr. Giles said, sounding like he'd be knocking back a couple of stiff drinks when it was all over with. "According to the Council, she was killed almost a week ago in Boston by a rather old vampire known as Kakistos, which roughly translated means 'worst of the worst'. Apparently the monster has a taste for breaking Slayers, whether they've been Called or not and, once he learned of Faith, arranged a trap for her.

"I will not tell you the details of what the police found upon arriving at the location of the trap but, suffice it to say, more than a few seasoned officers got ill within seconds of seeing Watcher Dormer's remains." Giles explained with some emotion in his voice.

"Then what's Faith doing here?" Willow asked, sounding agitated by the news.

"Based on the news some informants gave me, she left Boston the same night as her Watcher's death and more or less headed straight here. Somehow she must have escaped Kakistos and ran to the only place of safety she could think of." she replied, remembering some of the things she'd been told.

"Sunnydale? Safe?" asked Oz, sounding as stoic as always.

"I think it's more likely that she sought the safety of Buffy and myself. Watcher Dormer and I frequently exchanged letters, as well as phone calls, concerning what was going on in our lives." Giles said, pushing his glasses up higher on his nose. "Faith likely had been told a great many stories about Buffy and her adventures. That part of her story is likely true."

"Yeah, well, if the rest of what my informants told me is true, Kakistos has followed her and is most likely already in town," she said as she recalled the incidents matching the old vampire's M.O that her informants had told her about.

Not a second after she finished speaking she hear the sound of surprise and movement from the entrance to the library. Those with the ears to hear turned their heads towards the doors but all they could catch a glimpse of was a mass of dark hair running away from the door. Xander and Hana were the first to the door to see if they could find out who had been spying on them but, watching as the door opened fully for a brief moment, she could already tell that the spy was no longer within a line of sight.

Fortunately, with Hana and her partners around, line of sight wasn't necessary for identification.

"It was Faith." Hana said after taking a couple of sniffs of the air just outside the door. "Judging by the strength of the scent, she probably heard everything."

"We need to go after her! If Kakistos really is in town looking for her then she'll be easy pickings on her own." Xander said, making it clear he wanted to go after her.

"Then we better make sure that she's not on her own for long." She got to her feet, "Split up and find her. Bring her back here."

"On it," Xander said before disappearing from sight, Hana soon following.

"We'll go, too," Buffy said, heading for the weapons cabinet. "The more people we have out searching, the quicker we'll find her."

Willow and Oz followed the blonde's example, leaving the library with her to find the potential Slayer. That left only her, Rupert Giles and Ms. Calendar behind in the library but that was probably for the best. There was an off chance that the girl might come back on her own and so it was best to have someone here waiting for her. There was also a chance she'd bring trouble with her and that was why she was staying here rather than joining in the search with the rest of her team. While neither of the other two adults were without skill, the information she'd gained on Kakistos indicated he always had quite a few soldiers on hand. If they chased Faith back there, Calendar and Giles would be overwhelmed by numbers alone. At least with her there she could buy time until the others returned and, if the ANBU assigned to monitor her team was also nearby, then hopefully he would jump in to lend a hand as well.

She had caught glimpse of Hisoka every step of the way during their trip to Sunnydale, as well as in the days after their arrival, but not once had he tried to meet with her or the others. She could only presume that he'd been ordered not to interact with them outside of his capacity as an observer and, as such, would only appear if a member of Team Anko broke one of the terms of their assignment. So far they hadn't done anything of the sort and, hopefully, it would stay that way until the time came to return to Konoha in the summer. Then she could petition Hokage-sama to remove the ANBU and allow them to handle things on their own without unwanted observation. The old fossils and maybe even that war hawk Danzo would oppose this, of course, but even they had limits as to how far they could go in influencing Tsunade-sama's actions. If the student of the Third Hokage made her choice and stuck with it, the most those old farts would be able to do would be to whine and try to intimidate her into changing her mind.

_No matter what else those old geezers might think, Tsunade is Hokage and her power is greater than what they possess,_ she thought with her anger rising up at the mere thought of the three movers and shakers of Konoha. _Won't stop them from trying to prove otherwise, though._

Nevertheless, so long as there were those that believed in the Hokage of the past and what they stood for, she knew that the warmongers of Konoha would never have their way.

No one who knew the pain of the past wars would ever condone actions that would lead to another one and she had no doubt that if the policies of those three fools were implemented, that that is exactly what would happen. To believe anything else was nothing more than a delusion by those who thought themselves smarter than those around them.

_**The Rooftops of Sunnydale, Hana's POV**_

_Dammit! Where the hell is that Boston bitch?!_ she thought as she continued to search for the potential Slayer.

She'd hooked up with her partners the second she'd left the school and they'd done their best to follow the scent of the eavesdropping teenager, however they'd lost it after the four blocks. It had pissed her off to no end because she hadn't been able to think of a single way that could've happened that made sense. Sure back in the ninja region of the world, the other villages had numerous ways to confuse an enemy who tracked by scent but none of those people were in Sunnydale, or at least they shouldn't have been. She knew she hadn't done anything to let the world know that a couple of Konoha ninja were in town and she was fairly sure none of the other members of Team Anko had, either.

Something magic or demon related?

_Maybe, but why would they want to keep us from tracking Faith?_ She thought as she signaled her partners to spread out more in an effort to find a scent they could follow.

The obvious answer was Kakistos' people but, if what Anko-sensei said was true, then it didn't seem possible they could have gotten into town, learned about the team and then come up with counter moves so quickly. That meant that something else was going on and someone was just taking advantage of the situation. Growling at the idea of some behind-the-curtain enemy playing around with them, she made sure to keep her eyes peeled for anything strange. She didn't know what that strange something would be but she knew that she'd know it when she saw it.

It was only a few minutes later that she spotted a sight that caught her attention. Moving quickly down the street was a group of eight people clad in clothes that were distinctly not current, with swords strapped to their waists. It wasn't until she was halfway to them that her eyes were able to pick out the enlarged foreheads and glowing yellow eyes that identified them as vampires.

_I bet good money these guys are with Kakistos,_ she thought as she picked up the pace. _That means I can't let them find Faith. Fortunately, I know just the way to make sure of that._

Putting on one final burst of speed, she leapt from the rooftops, with her three partners right behind her, and landed in the path of the eight vampires.

"Sorry, fang faces, but this street is closed," she said, her girls growling to back her up. "In fact, you dead heads should consider this entire town off limits. So pack your bags and get out of town."

The eight bloodsuckers looked at her, looked at each other, and then did the thing she'd been hoping that they'd do from the beginning: they attacked her.

"FOR KAKISTOS WE LIVE AND FOR KAKISTOS WE WILL DIE!"

"You got the last part right, at least!" she said with a feral smile on her face as she pulled a kunai from her equipment pouch. "Let's tear'em up, girls!"

With that the fight was on and she loved every single **minute** of it!

It was like a well-choreographed fight for her because, as fast and as skilled as the vamps were with their swords, they had nothing on her. It got to the point that, by the time she'd lobotomize the second one, she'd decided to make things more interesting by targeting harder to get to spots or by attacking only from a certain angle. It definitely upped the difficulty level, especially when the vamps discovered the limitations she was putting on herself, but she was the only one left standing when the last of the dust hit the ground.

"Not bad for a bunch of walking corpses," she said out loud as she looked about to see if there were any more, "but it'll take more than a bunch of brainwashed fang boys to put me in the ground."

Seeing no more opponents, she sighed with disappointment since she'd now have to resume trying to find that lost girl and that would be boring. Preparing to leap back to the rooftops, she was interrupted as the front of one of the nearby building exploded like someone had used an explosive tag, causing her to reflexively leap back a couple of feet. When the dust cleared, she saw something decidedly more impressive than a bunch of vampires: a bipedal demonic rhino. Clad in primitive armor and wielding a spike mace, it looked like it could actually cause her quite a bit of pain if she got careless.

"Where comrades? Where vam-pires with swords?" asked the demon in a voice that did not imply that a great deal of intelligence resided in its head.

"They're over there, horn head," she said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the swords littering the street amidst the piles of dust. "What's left of them, anyway."

The demon rhino looked in the direction she indicated and, for two solid minutes, it looked at the remains of its comrades before turning back to her. With a tensing of muscles, it let out a bellow that she was pretty sure could be heard for blocks around before grabbing a hold of its weapon with both hands and charged her. Its speed wasn't anything too impressive and so she started to dance around it like she had the vampires, but after a near miss of the thing's mace, she decided to take things a bit more seriously. While stupider than any person she'd ever met, the demon's instincts weren't all that bad and it was actually managing to get pretty close with each swing of its mace. Still, for all its efforts, the only thing it was managing to do was leave craters in the street and turn a couple of nearby cars into so much scrap metal. If she let things go on too long, it'd cause quite the commotion come morning and that'd mean a lecture from Anko-sensei for not ending the fight sooner.

"It's been a blast, horn head, but I've got better things to do then go fifty rounds with you," she said as she set the demon up. "Time to die!"

With that she flipped over its head and, while still in the air, threw a trio of kunai at its exposed back, her targets being where vital spots would be on a human. She didn't know if its insides were anything like her insides but she was confident enough that there'd be enough similarity that the blades would at least slow it down by half.

Or at least that's would've happened if her throwing blades hadn't bounced off the demons back and fallen to the ground.

Now **that** she hadn't been expecting.

Looking at the places where her weapons hit as she touched down, she could barely see any damage at all, which meant that its hide was tougher than traditional flesh. While she hadn't thrown the three kunai with all the strength she possessed, there'd been enough power behind them that they should have penetrated the monster's hide. Watching as the rhino man turned around to face her, she wondered what else she could do to bring this fight to a satisfactory conclusion. The smart move would be to just leave but she somehow doubted that the thing would cool down even if she pulled a vanishing act. As simple minded and pissed as it was, it would probably smash up the entire area before calming down enough to crawl back under its proverbial rock. Explosive tags might do the trick but, since they'd been patrolling the town with an emphasis on stealth, she hadn't bothered to bring any with her.

Explosions weren't exactly subtle, after all.

_Guess there's only one thing left then, _she thought, taking a quick look around. _No one's around, so as long as I make this quick, that ANBU shouldn't have anything to gripe about._

Hopping back a couple of feet, she used hand signals to tell Hagane, Ishina and Seirei to regroup around her before deciding to put an end to all this.

"Alright girls, you know what to do!" she said as she dropped to all fours. "JUJIN BUNSHIN!"

Her partners transformed into half-beast, half-human copies of her while she used her chakra to enhance her bestial qualities, causing her nails to grow into claws. This unusual occurrence served its purpose of momentarily surprising the demon into motionlessness, so she moved onto the finishing move.

"NIJUU GATSUGA!"

With all four of them spinning so fast so as to be like unto drills, they shot forward and impacted on the thing's chest one after another. The first blow staggered it, the second almost caused it to lose its footing, the third knocked it off its feet and the fourth slammed into it hard enough to daze it.

"NOW! ALL AT ONCE GIRLS!" she yelled as she came out of her spin just long enough to change directions back towards the demon.

With the force of four Gatsuga's all at once they struck the demon, resulting in not only the demon dying but also for spider web cracks to form all around it. Pushing off the demon and landing on her feet, she took a moment to examine her work and make sure that the demon was very dead. Peripherally she was aware of her girls doing the same and, when no further movement or signs of life popped up, she allowed herself a feral smile of satisfaction at a job well done.

"If this is the best the Hellmouth can throw at us, this is going to be easier than I thought." she said to herself before letting her body slip back into its default state.

Leaping back to the rooftops, she resumed her search for that Faith girl so she could drag the idiot back to the library for some explaining.

_**The Rooftops Heading to the Northern Part of Town, Xander's POV**_

_I just hope that my bet pays off or else things are going to take a turn for the worse._ He thought as he continued to move for the place that he believed Faith would go.

Unlike the others, who could only looked at things from the perspective of people with loving families, he had the unique position of being able to see things from the other side of the coin. He knew what it was like to live with parents who did not act at all like the caring parents. This allowed him to get inside Faith's head since he'd bet a month of Twinkies that she'd had as crappy a childhood as him.

Perhaps even something worse, though he prayed to whatever benevolent deity was listening that that wasn't the case.

The first thing he knew was that she wouldn't be hanging out any place where the people traffic would be high. The reason for this was directly related to why the potential Slayer had come to Sunnydale in the first place: to run and to hide from a terrifying pursuer. If she stayed in one of the more common hotels in town, the number of people coming and going would make it difficult to see the ones you were watching out for. That meant that she'd be staying at a motel that wasn't very popular and was rarely half full most of the year.

That cut down on the possibilities by half.

The second thing he knew was that, when you hid from someone dangerous, you never let yourself get backed into a corner. You **always** have an escape route thought out, sometimes more than one, so that if you had to you could escape your pursuer in order to find a new hiding spot. In his mind that meant that the motel that Faith would be staying at would be someplace near the bus terminal or the warehouse district, since she could sneak on one of the large transport trucks. He didn't think she'd choose anyplace near the warehouses since those were favored places for demons and vamps to set up shop. That was why he was currently heading for motel closest to the bus terminal, hoping that he'd be able to catch her before she hopped on the first Greyhound out of town.

He knew with a fair amount of certainty that now that her lie had been exposed, Faith was going to make a run for it. This was even more certain if she overheard that Kakistos was indeed in Sunnydale and, while he could understand her impulse to bolt, running wasn't going to do anything for her troubles. Her best shot for dealing with Kakistos was in Sunnydale and running away would only make her an easier kill when the ancient vampire finally caught up with her. He had to get to her and convince her of that, which was why he'd sent Ava on ahead to scope out the motel he'd pegged as his number one place to look.

_Anything worth reporting?_

Feelings of alertness but no feelings of danger were conveyed to him as snapshots of the motel entered his mind through his link with the eagle hawk. None of them showed signs of vamps in the immediate area but one of the rooms had its lights on and one of the pics showed a female figure close to the window. Still, with confirmation that Faith was in her room, he doubled his pace to get there before she escaped him.

Only a few minutes passed before he arrived at the motel and perched atop a telephone pole, allowing him to take in the surrounding area with his own eyes instead of through Ava's. Much like the last snapshot, there were no signs that Kakistos had arrived yet with his minions. The lights were also still on in the room he believed Faith was in, so she hadn't left yet and he could see the occasional shape walk by the window, so she was likely pacing. With her enemy, the one she feared, so close she was probably trying to think up the safest way of getting the hell out of Sunnydale. The problem arose if she had let her fear take control of her mind because, when a person was afraid, thinking straight isn't easy and they usually choose quickest solution rather than the right one.

Hopefully now that he was there, he could keep things from going completely down the crapper.

Leaping down from the top of the telephone pole, he landed on the sidewalk without making any noise and proceeded to advance on Faith's room. He didn't have a real plan when it came to what he'd do when he finally looked her in the eyes beyond trying to get her to understand that she could count on the Scoobies to help but he was sure he'd come up with something. If worse came to worse and he couldn't convince her to stay in Sunnydale, he could at the very least help her escape. Then he'd go on the hunt and try to take down as many of Kakistos' minions as he could, maybe even the big bad himself. If he took out the master vampire, he'd have taken away at least half of Faith's fear and then time would take care of the rest as she got over her watcher's death. With his resolve formed, he began to climb the steps that would lead to the second level of the motel and let his feelings guide him the rest of the way.

He was just placing his right foot on the final step when a sound that didn't belong caused him to sharply turn his head to the right and what he saw caused him to go from a brisk walk to a sprint.

Kakistos had arrived with his right hand man and no less than twenty flunkies.

Racing to the room that held Faith, he didn't even bother knocking as he kicked the door open and located a frazzled Faith looking like she was caught between fighting and making a run for it.

"I know what you're thinking and let me save time by making the decision for you: we're **definitely** running!" he said as he quickly grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to the window leading away from the direction Kakistos was coming from.

Throwing it open, he quickly hopped out and then helped her do the same before pulling her down the alley behind the motel as quickly as she could manage. He knew **he** could go faster and if he picked her up in his arms they could very well escape the vampires, but that would raise questions he'd rather not have to answer unless he had to. They almost made it to the streets when three vamps popped out of nowhere, blocking that avenue of escape and forced him to turn left down another alleyway, hoping to find another escape route.

Twice more a group of vampires popped up just as they were about to break away from the narrow corridors that the alleys represented and that was enough for him to draw a conclusion: they were being herded somewhere.

_Not good! I knew that they start looking for Faith the second they arrived in town but I didn't think they'd be able to put together a plan so quickly._ He thought as he continued to work through possible scenarios.

Unfortunately Lady Luck wasn't inclined to give him the time to come up with a plan that'd work and, after one final turn, the two of them wound up in some sort of storage warehouse filled with dusty tables and boxes. Almost immediately he turned around, hoping that he could backtrack enough to go someplace else, but as the sound of quite a lot of feet approaching roasted those nuts quite thoroughly.

"Well this is a fuck-tastic crap-fest! What the hell're we going to do now!?" she exclaimed, half afraid as well as half angry.

"I guess we fight," he said with a sigh as he realized he was going to have to expose some of his true self in the next few minutes.

"Are you fuckin' crazy!?" she asked at the top of her lungs, "There are at least ten vamps out there and last time I checked, neither of us had the chops to take on even **one** of them!"

"Then we're just going to have to fight smart." He broke a leg off of one of the tables, "Besides, I've got some moves you haven't even seen yet."

Yeah, he knew that it was such a 'guy' line that he'd just delivered but it was the truth and it was too late to go back and try something a little less pick up line related.

"Fuck you! I'm not getting killed 'cause you're thinkin' with your cock instead of your head!" she said as she immediately began to make her way for the back of the warehouse.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, Faith," came a voice that was heavy on the malice with only a light coating of politeness. "It won't be the boy's foolishness that kills you tonight. No… that's a pleasure I will allow no one to have but **me**."

"Sorry, goat boy, but the only way you'll get to Faith is if you go through me," he said as he took up a defensive position in front of the potential Slayer.

"Hmmm… a little fun with a mouse might just the thing to get me ready for the main course," Kakistos said with a bit of cruel playfulness in his voice. "Mr. Trick? Select three to take first crack at this human."

"Only three?" asked a black vampire who presumably was Mr. Trick, "Why not more?"

"Because it wouldn't be very sporting to deprive him of a fighting chance at victory," Kakistos replied with a fang filled smile. "Besides I don't want my opening act to end too soon."

Mr. Trick picked three vampires from the large group behind the leader and made it clear with a gesture what he wanted them to do. From there, like most vamps, the trio approached him like a couple of pros about to school a rookie in the art of kicking ass, not considering for a second that there might be more to him than they could see.

He had to grin a bit at how surprised they'd be in a minute or two.

Assuming they actually managed to last that long.

_**Faith's POV**_

_I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!_ Was all that kept repeating in her mind as she watched the three vampires advance on B's friend, the killer intent clear on their faces.

It was a sentiment that had hardened in the core of her mind the moment Kakistos had begun tearing into D right in front of her. When she'd escaped and gained some distance on the focus of her nightmares, she'd been able to forget for an hour here and there but whenever she thought of the past or tried to plan for the future, the fear returned. Nevertheless, she'd continued across the country, looking over her shoulder whenever she could, in the hopes that when she reached Sunnydale she'd finally find safety with the Slayer that lived there. After all, Slayers were supposed to be these badass bitches that made demons shit their pants, so she'd clung to the hope that maybe the one in California could save her from Kakistos.

When she'd arrived and met B for the first time, she'd seen how far above her a Called Slayer was in terms of fighting ability and she could almost picture what it'd be like if she ever got the nod for the Slayer gig. However, her admiration for the Slayer took a bit of a nosedive when she learned that not only did the bottle blonde not fit her mental picture of an Amazon warrior, but she had **friends** as well. It went against everything D had ever taught her about how a Slayer was supposed to live once the higher power tapped them. They were supposed to be lone warriors who had only their Watchers for backup and spent their off hours learning new ways to fillet demons. They weren't supposed to be going to school unless it was undercover to beat some big bad. They weren't supposed to have friends because norms were just liabilities in the big fight or future hostages. Their families, if they had any, were supposed to be kept in the dark, assuming that they were allowed to retain any connections with them at all.

The contradiction of it all had left her thrown for bit but she was tough and recovered quickly enough.

For a time she enjoyed their company but, when she stumbled onto them learning the truth about why she'd come to Sunnydale, she knew it was time to bolt. They'd be steamed that she'd lied to them from the beginning and, while she didn't think they'd throw her to the wolves, they wouldn't be so keen on going all out for her either. Add that to Kakistos being in town and she'd decided to do the only smart thing possible: get the hell outta dodge and hope that B could slow pursuit down a bit.

She'd raced back to her hotel and immediately began packing her stuff as quickly as she could. It wasn't until she was done though that she realized getting out of Sunnydale wouldn't be as easy as she thought it'd be. Kakistos wasn't as dumb as the majority of vamps in the world and his number two guy, , was pretty sharp as well, so it wouldn't be that impossible for them to have the buses watched. She thought there was a chance that she could slip onto a truck heading out of town but she didn't have a clue where to find one and running around town looking for one would just make catching her easier. So she'd spent the next twenty minutes trying to think up another escape plan but still had zip to show for it when Xander showed up.

From there it'd been a frantic run to escape and now they were backed into a room with no way out and X was about to get torn apart.

At least that's what she had thought would happen.

Her opinion quickly changed when, instead of being killed by the first few blows, the goofy guy he instead began dodging and weaving the vamp attacks like a martial arts master. Most of the time he'd just lean or step to the side to avoid a blow but every so often he'd actually counter attack with a move good enough to daze the vampire it hit. It didn't make any sense! She knew that norm guys and gals had some different equipment that could make one stronger than another genetically, but not even a Mr. Universe winner could match a vamp in strength. So how the hell was Xander managing this?

"Stay still, blood bag!" one of the vamps growled as another of his punches missed the mark by half a foot.

"Hmmm… stay still and get pummeled by three vamps or keep dodging and remain pain free…" X said with fake seriousness before grinning at his foes. "Nah! Letting yourself get hit is never a good idea. Wanna know why?"

Before any reply could be given B's buddy kicked his body into overdrive and with, four moves she had trouble following, he managed to dust the vamps attacking him. For a moment she zoned out and images from various Hollywood kung-fu films flitted through her mind, where the heavy duty master took out a group of baddies before someone's cigar hit the floor. That's what Xander reminded her of and, even with all the freak-tastic things she'd learned about since D started taking care of her, this still stunned her.

Was he some kinda guy Slayer or was he just the manliest looking girl she'd ever seen in her life?

"That is why," Xander said before bringing his improvised stake into an offensive position. "Now, here's another question for ya: **who's NEXT!?**"

"KILL HIM!" yelled Kakistos after overcoming his initial shock. "Kill him and bring Faith to me **alive!**"

Every vamp except the demon of her nightmares and his second in command charged them, causing her fear to spike as she looked about for something she could use as a weapon. Seeing a lead pipe sitting on a table, she grabbed it and held it like a baseball bat before marshaling what courage she had left for the battle ahead.

Just as she thought the first few vamps would make it past X to grab her, though, the California teenager did something she hadn't been expecting. He broke his foot long stake in half then, like a one man army, he began dusting vamps left and right, not letting one get past him. By the time the fang faces got a clue and backed off to rethink their charging strategy, their numbers had gone from twenty-something to about fifteen, not including the two top dogs.

"What the hell are you?!" asked Kakistos, who sounded confident as ever but with hesitation in his movements if you looked close enough.

"Someone whose gonna see you and your posse fill a helluva lot of buckets before the night is out," X replied, sounding like losing wasn't a possibility for him.

"Not if we kill you first," Kakistos growled with anger and a bit of seriousness. "Hydra formation, losers!"

This was something she'd never seen the goat man do before.

Vamps, as a rule, were loners and the few times they got together in groups like this, they were still one on one fighters who couldn't co-ordinate with each other very well. What she was seeing now was something she'd expect from a team that'd done this sort of thing fairly often before, or at least had been trained so they could do it. Dividing into groups of five, the minion vamps lined up, with the rearmost fang faces close together while the ones in the front spread out so that one was to the left, one was in the middle and one was on the right side of the room. At first she didn't think it was all that smart having them line up like that but then she realized that by spreading them out like that, it'd be impossible for X to stop all of them. Some would eventually get through to her and it'd be over, since it was a given that they'd pull the whole 'surrender or she dies' schtick. Xander must've come to the same conclusion because, with two hops, he was right in front of her looking as determined as ever not to lose this fight.

"Oh, look! They know how to place nice with each other," Xander said with fake praise and quite a bit of sarcasm. "I wonder if it's going to do them any good."

The answer that came was not from the vamps, nor from X, but from the wall on the left side of the room. It sounded like someone was hitting the other side of the wall with a nail gun on full auto but then, as quickly as it had begun, it stopped, leaving a silence in the air. The silence only lasted two seconds before the wall blew inwards, knocking over the left line up of vamps and throwing dust into the air. When the air did clear, the people who stood just outside the hole in the wall were not at all what she'd expected to see.

If it'd been some random demon crashing the party she wouldn't have been surprised. If it'd been B and her Watcher, she wouldn't have been surprised.

Seeing two busty babes looking like they should be workin' for the Triad standing there ready to kick some ass was definitely surprising.

"Xander-sama! We here to help!" spoke the brunette with a great rack.

"Time to kick ass!" said the babe with the black hair and toned body.

_That's a good thing, right?_ She thought a bit unsure of the answer.

_**Lotion's POV**_

_YES! Finally a chance to show my future husband what a wonderful wife I can be!_ she thought as she charged the vampires head on.

With her nunchaku twirling, she managed to fracture the skulls of three vampires before they recovered from the shock of the dramatic entrance she and Pu Fium had carried out. From there things got a little more difficult, but not by much. Vampires were nothing special to the people of her tribe and were often used as tests to see if young warriors had learned their lessons well. As she broke the arm of a vampire after evading a punch executed by the same arm, though, she was forced to admit by the follow up attack by the other arm that the corpse could fight through pain well enough. Thrusting her knee into the offending vampire's chest, however, quickly surpassed what the demon could safely work through. Normally, if this had been a test back in her village, she'd have ended the confrontation by staking the vampire but, at the moment, that wasn't an option. What the undead cannon fodder lacked in skill they made up for in numbers, forcing her to deal with the next threat immediately after defeating the previous one.

She wasn't worried, though.

While vampires could heal if they drank enough blood, it still took quite a bit of time, especially if the injuries were severe. In the case of broken bones, it'd take the animated corpses on the ground at least a couple of days to recover, which it wouldn't be given since, once this fight was over with, she'd dust each of them herself.

As she entered a momentary lull in attackers, she looked about to see how the others were doing with their battles. Her future husband was sticking close to a teenage girl, whom she presumed was the reason why Xander and his allies were searching the city tonight. None of the enemies had managed to get past his guard but then she didn't think they would anyway. He was, after all, not only the man who'd bested her in combat but also a chuunin of Konoha, so the idea of a vampire defeating him was as laughable as a child defeating a seasoned warrior of the tribe.

Pu Pium was using her sai with surgical precision, aiming for major arteries as well as other points that would dispatch her foes swiftly. By aiming for major arteries, she'd force the corpse to bleed out quicker, sapping the fang face's strength. By aiming for the eyes, joints and major muscle groups, her sister amazon she severely reduced her adversary's threat level, making the final blow with the pommel of a sai shattering a skull.

Seeing movement out of the corner of her eye, she managed to move in time to evade an amateurish club swing aimed at her head. With her weapon she shattered the chair leg that was being used and, with a foot, she made sure that the arm that had swung it wouldn't be able to lift **anything** in the immediate future.

Kinda hard to do so when all of the bones in the shoulder required for such action had been broken in multiple places.

She was about to turn and focus on mopping up the last of the minions when, out of nowhere, something clamped down on her shoulder. She was about to use one of the many techniques she'd been taught to break such a grip but, before she could put thought to action, she was thrown out of the warehouse with surprising speed. So fast was she travelling through the air that she was unable to right herself before hitting the hard brick wall that rudely refused to let her pass without harassment. The impact was painful and it did knock the wind out of her but her mother raised her well. Forcing her body to obey her will, she quickly got the oxygen she needed and commanded her body to do as she willed rather than what it wanted to do. Getting back to her feet, she turned her attention back to the warehouse with the intent of finding the one who'd thrown her out of it.

What she saw did not bode well for anyone other than the vampires.

The old vampire with goat hands and feet was now in the fight directly rather than sitting on the sidelines. Unlike the others whom she could dispatch without trouble, this one with the scarred face was on a whole other level. In terms of speed and strength, he made his minions look like they were fresh from the ground. As a result, both Xander and Pu Fium were forced to take him on together, allowing the few remaining minions to focus on acquiring the unknown girl. Taking a moment to debate the various choices she could make, she chose to go to the aid of the teenager her future husband desired to keep safe. Once she dispatched the minions, she could then join the others in their efforts to finish off the leader of this group of undead.

She was about halfway to the innocent when all of a sudden her path was blocked by an African American vampire in an expensive looking suit who did not seem inclined to let her pass.

"Sorry, babe, but the boss wouldn't want you interferin' right now," the vampire said with total arrogance. "Gonna have to get past me first."

"Babe!? You dare call Lu Xion **BABE!?**" she exclaimed with fury at this… thing… referring to her in such a manner. "I kill you **slowly** for that!"

With that she began to teach the foolish vampire why it was not a wise decision to anger a warrior of her tribe.

She was certain that it'd be a lesson he'd never forget.

You can't forget something if you were reduced to a pile of ashes.

_**Xander's POV**_

_How can there be such a __**difference?!**_ He thought as he tried once more to turn the tide against Kakistos, only to find out his efforts weren't quite good enough. _How can this guy be this much stronger than the vamps I've dusted so far!?_

Oh, he knew the logic behind it because Giles had explained it to them often enough in the beginning for even someone as academically challenged as him to absorb it. The older a vampire became, the stronger and faster they became, with some of them acquiring unique powers that set them apart from the crowd. He'd seen enough of a difference between newbie vamps and Deadboy to see how a few centuries could make a vamp more powerful than one fresh from the ground. He'd even heard from Buffy how impressively strong the Master had been when she'd first fought him, so he had thought up until now that he had a decent grasp of their growth rate.

This was something much different.

When he'd first engaged the vampires he'd only tapped into about a third of the natural strength and speed his body possessed without using chakra to enhance his abilities. This had been enough for him to match the minions physically and his skills as a ninja had allowed him to see through their attacks without too much trouble. Indeed it had gotten to the point where he'd believed he could wrap up this entire little escapade without showing his true nature to Faith.

Now, though… now he was beginning to think that the only way they'd make it out of this with a minimum of bruising was to tap into the abilities he'd gained since last Halloween.

The moment he had a second where he wasn't busy blocking or evading, he channeled chakra to his eyes and activated the power that resided only with members of his clan: Sharingan.

He'd been practicing with it since they got back and was beginning to understand how it worked and the uses that it had on the battlefield. According to what he'd learned since he'd first arrived in Konoha, the bloodline limit of his clan had several notable abilities that allowed a bearer to be more powerful than the average ninja. The first was referred to as 'Eye of Insight', which allowed the user to see the flow of chakra in a living thing allowing them to learn quite a bit. For one thing, it'd let him know if one of his teammates was under the influence of an enemy's jutsu based on the flow of the energy within them.

In this particular instance, though, he'd be using the kekkai genkai's ability to follow the movements of fast moving objects and its predictive abilities to see what Kakistos was going to do a few seconds before the vamp actually did it. If he'd been a normal human with this ability, it wouldn't have worked out nearly as well since he wouldn't have been fast enough to evade what he could see. However, thanks to his training, evading the vampire's attacks was easy, the demon's movements being painted in such broad strokes in his eyes. With this being the case, he began to try and manipulate Kakistos' movements to create an opening for a kill shot with the improvised stakes in his hands. It wasn't easy because, aside from enhanced physical abilities, age also brought with it fighting experience and that meant that simple ploys or feints wouldn't work. Fortunately, though, there was one battle that the ancient vampire forfeited first and that was the battle of patience. No doubt it was because the vamp was pissed that two 'meat bags' were causing him such difficulty when it should've been as easy as swatting a fly for him.

With this loss of patience came an opening in the master vampire's defenses that he exploited instantly by bringing the stake in his right hand down hard on the fiend's chest. The plan, though, hit a snag when he was forced to watch as his wooden weapon fail to achieve the desired penetration, even with one third of his total strength behind it.

"Is that your best, human? Let's see how you like **mine!**" Kakistos yelled as he grabbed the offending right arm in a vise like grip.

_Dammit!_ He thought as he realized that his moment of shock had caused him to get captured. _Got sloppy!_

As the vampire pulled him into the air and grabbed his right leg at the same time, it didn't take much thought to figure out what was coming, so with a mental sigh of regret, he executed a technique he had hoped he would not have to use.

_Kawarimi no jutsu!_

With that and a puff of smoke, he extricated himself from the vamp's grasp, leaving the blood drinker with only a wooden chair in his grasp. Landing on the ground a short distance away, he knew the time for hiding what he was had ended because, if Kakistos didn't figure out the truth immediately, he would soon enough. The smart thing to do would be to use a fire type ninjutsu and just fry the murderer but that was dismissed when his eyes fell upon Faith, who managed on her own to finish off the minions that had made it to her position. This impressed him because, while she might have received some training from her Watcher, he hadn't thought her physically capable of defeating more than one vamp on her own. Either the vamps had gotten careless when attacking her or she had good fighting instincts that had allowed her to overcome the odds. That wasn't to say that she was in great shape but it wasn't anything that would require more than a first aid kit from what he could see. It was the look he could see in her eyes that prompted him to step back from finishing off the vampire himself and choose a different course of action.

Surging forward with his chakra enhanced speed, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the ninja gloves he'd stuffed into it. By the time he stood in front of Kakistos, both were on so, just as he'd done many times before, he thrust his hands forward and released a pulse of chakra. With twin puffs of smoke, explosive tags appeared and, with a minimal effort, he directed them to the limbs of his target. It wasn't quite like using the chakra strings that pajama-wearing Sand ninja did to control his puppets but it served its purpose and that was good enough for him.

"Pu Fium! Get clear!" he declared as he leapt away from the clueless vampire.

As soon as he was sure that all of the people he cared about were the right distance away, he sent out another pulse of chakra, triggering the tags to explode violently. Unlike the ones he'd used in the past that possessed concussive force enough to daze and disorient his target, these ones possessed power enough to break down a wooden door if needed. A single explosive tag of this variety would be enough to lead a melon-sized hole in a door. With two attached to each of the master vampire's limbs, the bloodsucker was reduced to a torso with a head in the blink of an eye. Bellows of pain and anger erupted from Kakistos' mouth as the crimson liquid the undead valued so much flowed from the monster's stumps.

_What I wouldn't give for one of those explosive tags that exploded when you tried to remove them from whatever they'd been attached to._ he thought as he looked about the room, settling on something. _Guess I'll just have to make do with what's available._

Walking over to the red case that was leaning up against the left wall, he opened it up and, much like he'd expected, there was a fire axe inside that looked to still be in decent enough condition. Yanking it out, he turned his head to see Lotion finish off the last vampire leaving only allies and the pitiful mess that was Kakistos in the room. Going over to where Faith was leaning against a dusty dresser, he held out the axe, looked her in the eye and then turned to look at the source of her fear. While tired and banged up, she understood what he was offering within seconds and immediately took the implement of death from his hand.

Watching her walk towards the thing that had hurt her so much, he was only peripherally aware of Perfume and Lotion taking up positions on either side of him. They said nothing, so he assumed that they knew what was going to happen and would not try and stop it.

Watching as the potential Slayer stood over the monster that had killed her Watcher and haunted her nightmares for the last few weeks, he wondered if she would be able to muster the strength to strike the final blow. It was one thing to have the chance to confront one's inner demons. It was quite another to push through your fear, to seize the chance and then use it to dispel the dark memories once and for all.

Faith, however, proved to have strength he'd come to expect from Slayers.

"AAAGGGGHHH!" Faith yelled as she brought the axe over her head and then chopped it down right on Kakistos' neck.

In one fell swoop the head of one of the oldest vampires on the planet was separated from his body, causing the dead flesh to turn to dust and leaving only a deformed skeleton behind. This was not the end of the potential Slayer's assault because, immediately after the first chop, she brought the axe back up before hammering it down on the bones lying at her feet. Again and again and again she brought the blade down on the bones until there wasn't a single piece larger than a fingernail. With this much damage done, not even the ritual that was meant to revive the Master would work and so Faith would finally be able to leave her past behind.

Walking up to her, he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, since he knew that she'd be coming down off of an emotional high would probably need some support until she got it all out of her system. He wasn't wrong when the sounds of fury changed to sobs of grief and sadness, followed by her throwing herself into his arms before crying into his chest.

"Easy…easy…it's over. Let it all out," he whispered as he wrapped a comforting arm around her.

It was a good twenty minutes before they left the building leaving nothing but piles of ash and a demolished skeleton behind to show what happened.


	3. A New Day of Training Begins

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein (BtVS, Naruto, SM, Ranma). They are the rightful property of their respective creators and associated companies. I make no profit off of this whatsoever. I write because it's fun and because there are those that enjoy reading my stories. Therefore I would appreciate it if no one took legal action against me because I can guarantee that whatever you get from me won't cover even half of your legal fees.

_**A Little Past 1A.M, Team Anko's HQ/Home, Anko's POV**_

"She's asleep?" she asked as Xander-kun entered the living room.

It had been a little over an hour since he'd radioed the rest of the team telling them that he'd hooked up with Faith and had managed to defeat Kakistos with the help of two of the Chinese amazons. Neither Ayeka nor Hana had exactly been pleased with that turn of events but realized there wasn't a lot they could do about it since it'd already been done. She'd ordered him back to their HQ along with the rest of her team but had been surprised upon arriving at the dojo outside of town to find the potential Slayer being carried into the residential room. She'd asked him why he'd brought her to their home outside of Sunnydale and the response he'd given her had given her something to think about.

'She needs a home. I intend to give her one.'

That had left Hana going to the kitchen for a snack, Ayeka going to the targeting range to vent her anger at the amazons scoring points against her and, as for her, she'd gone to the living room to watch some TV. She had waited and, while it had taken twenty minutes for Xander to show up, it had been time she'd used to decipher his statement. On the surface it sounded innocent enough in that he wanted to give her a better place to live then some trashy hotel room that was open to vampires. Plus, if it was a temporary thing until the potential Slayer got relocated with a new watcher, then she had no trouble with curtailing her team's training until the girl left.

However she suspected that there was more to it than what was on the surface.

Everything she'd learned so far about Faith Lehane told her the girl had gotten the shitty end of the stick way more than the laws of probability should've allowed. Unknown father MIA more due to the fact that the mother had been too stoned or drunk to remember the fucking that gave birth to the potential. Her own sources had been able to dig up info on the mother, one Rebecca 'Revy' Lehane, and it personally made her want to find the waste of space so she could try a few tricks Orochimaru had taught her. Indeed, if she knew where her former sensei was, she was sorely tempted to stuff Revy into a crate and send the monster one more specimen for his experiments. The woman had a history of substance abuse and, as a result, tended to associate with scum in order to feed her addiction. It was her belief that the only reason the woman hadn't abandoned her daughter immediately is because she saw her offspring as a future source of income.

She knew that Xander didn't even have one source outside of his friends but the boy had a knack for seeing more than most people did and she wasn't referring to his Sharingan.

The young Uchiha probably saw enough from how Faith acted and moved to draw up a pretty accurate idea of what her life was like back in Boston. Considering her student's own family history, something else she had her sources look into on a whim, she had every reason to believe that he saw the potential Slayer as a kindred spirit. If that was the case, then his White Knight complex would compel him to do everything in his power to make sure she got a shot at a good life no matter what. That could prove problematic if Xander wound up doing what she suspected he was going to do.

"Yeah. Probably won't be up an' about until noon," Xander replied before sitting down on a vacant chair. "Tonight really wore her out."

"Not surprising with all the running and the fighting she did," she said, imagining how hard it would've been to someone with little combat training to endure such an adventure.

"Yeah. She's lucky she managed to make it through." He looked out the window to the darkness outside, "With all those vamps there, I couldn't do much without going ninja on their butts. If Lotion and Perfume hadn't been there, I'd have had to cross the line Tsunade-hime set for us."

"It's a good thing you didn't. I might not catch more than glimpse of that ANBU the fossils assigned to us at a time but I know he'd rat us out in a heartbeat if we went too far," she said reminding him of the vultures that were waiting to exploit their mistakes.

"I hope he's more reasonable than that or there's going to be trouble."

"What do you mean?" she asked, almost dreading the response.

"I plan on teaching her how to fight." he replied without any hesitation.

"No, you're not. You know the rules of us being here and the treaty we have with the Council," she said firmly, hoping to nip this particular problem in the bud. "No one outside of the team is to learn anything about our techniques outside of what they figure out on their own."

"Yes, I am. There are plenty of techniques that every village knows and uses," he said without any sign of rethinking his choice. "I'll only teach her those and a bit about how to use her chakra to be stronger and faster. As long as they aren't Konoha specific, Tsunade-sama and walking corpses shouldn't throw up too big of a fuss."

She had to admit that he had a point.

There were quite a few techniques that every village used with the only differences being cosmetic at best. One example would be bunshins or clones. Sand ninjas made theirs out of sand and ninjas from the hidden mist village used water. If Xander did stick to such techniques, as well as basic chakra enhancement techniques, then Tsunade-sama should be able to keep the old war hawks off of the Uchiha's back.

Still…

"Make up a list of the techniques and moves you're going to teach her. I look it over with Hisoka and make sure they're safe to teach her. No matter what ones get X'ed out, you will stay away from them. Good enough?"

"Good enough," he said with a grateful grin. "Honestly I thought you'd outright tell me no but it's nice to see I was wrong."

"I've gotten to know you pretty good since you were assigned to my team, Xan," she said with her usual smile. "Even if I'd threatened to kill you if you taught her, you'd still do it. This way at least I'll have some say in what Faith is taught."

"Smart," he said with his usual lopsided grin.

"Damn straight, kid, and don't you go forgetting that!" she said with mock seriousness in her voice. "Now don't stay up too late. I know firsthand that teaching takes a lot out of ya until you get used to it."

She walked out of the living room and went to her bedroom to catch some sleep. She also knew from past experience that it'd require a lot of energy to convince Hisoka to let her second in command to teach the potential Slayer anything, even if it is just the basics. Hopefully, though, if she said something like 'even if she masters the moves, a genin fresh from the academy would still kick her ass', it'd be enough to get him to agree. Indeed it would take years of training and real in the field experience for the potential Slayer to become anything remotely resembling a security risk to Konoha. By that time, hopefully the old fossils would be worm food and Tsunade-sama would be able to relax the restrictions enough to allow the further training she had a feeling Xander would give Faith.

Then all they'd have to worry about were the old farts in the Watcher's Council trying to use the girl as a means of stealing shinobi secrets.

That would be when things would get complicated.

_**The Next Day, Team Anko HQ, Morning, Ayeka's POV**_

"What's with all the yelling?" she asked, half asleep as she entered the main living room of their HQ.

"Xander got a little pissed at the ANBU but it's all good now." Hana said from her position leaning against the wall.

"Pissed? About what?" she asked finding it surprising that the ANBU Hisoka actually came out of hiding.

"Turns out Wannabe's going to teach that Boston Slayer some jutsu," Hana replied sounding somewhat annoyed.

"WHAT?! But Tsunade-sama would have a fit if he did that!" she exclaimed, unable to believe that her future husband was defying the Hokage like that.

"Yeah, that's what I though,t but according to Anko-sensei he's limiting it to stuff that every village can do. Nothing Konoha specific." Hana explained, still not quite in a good mood about it all. "Xander was yellin' because he and the ANBU were arguing over what he could and couldn't teach Faith."

She thought about that for a moment and she was mostly okay with it. If the ANBU was willing to sign off on it, then Team Anko wouldn't get into trouble once they made it back to Konoha. However she had to wonder what had brought this on in her inevitable spouse since he'd only known the girl for less than a week. Sure, she sorta felt something for what the east coast girl had gone through with her Watcher and everything but going from that to teaching her basic shinobi techniques as a bit out of left field from her point of view.

_Well, since it's something he's decided to do, then I guess I'll let him do it for now._ she thought as she turned around and began to head for the kitchen for some breakfast. _If that Southie bitch tries to put the moves on __**my**__ man, though, she's gonna learn the way of the ninja the PAINFUL way._

Going about what had become her normal routine since coming to Sunnydale, she took two slices of bread out and popped them in the toaster before getting the frying pan ready for her eggs. As she did so, she began thinking about what she'd be doing today but thankfully it was the weekend, so pretty much anything was doable for her. She'd probably stick around HQ for a little while to see how Xander's training of the potential Slayer went and, if it got boring, she'd check out the local mall. While the clothes she wore back in Konoha didn't entirely stick out, she'd seen the need for a more American look. A few odd looks walking down the street had made it clear that there were enough differences between her and the locals for people to notice. Since one of the key skills of a ninja was being able to fade into the background, she needed to get a whole new wardrobe so she could blend in perfectly.

Of course it wouldn't hurt if a few of the outfits she picked were sexy enough to catch Xander's eye and hold it for a few minutes.

They unofficial date at the Bronze when they'd first spotted the Boston potential had been good for gaining ground into his heart but she wasn't content to let it stop here. She'd keep going until he had no choice but to openly call their little outings dates because, once that happened, she'd officially be able to lay claim to the title of girlfriend. That'd put her far ahead of those Amazon bimbos and, by the time that they managed to come up with anything to catch up, she'd be walking down the aisle in her wedding dress.

_Hmmmm. That's something I'll need to start thinking about now if I want everything to be perfect on the big day._ She thought as she cracked open the shells of the eggs she'd chosen, _Traditional Konoha wedding or American wedding?_

She'd given her wedding some thought ever since she began noticing guys in a romantic way but had never gone past the basics since she wanted to wait until it looked like it'd really happen. She knew her mother wanted her to wear a wedding kimono that had been passed down in their family for five generations but she was a little wary of that since she'd seen the thing and it was getting a little… worn looking. Sure, when it'd first been made it was probably something pretty but all her eyes could see were the loose threads and the signs that it'd been washed many times. She'd seen a few kimono's that had been just **perfect** but one look at the price tags had pretty much forced her to put thoughts of purchase on hold. With her own income as a shinobi mixed with what she'd gotten through other means, she just didn't have enough.

Not if she wanted more than JUST the kimono.

_Since Xander's gotten every ounce of Uchiha property signed over to him, though, I can start thinking more high class with my wedding plans._ she thought with a smile as her imagination began to show her images of what could be.

With that in mind she went back to her thoughts on what kind of wedding they would have together. Her initial instinct was to have a traditional Konoha wedding, with everything being the best money could buy, but then she considered the potential legal work. Sure, if they got married back in Konoha it'd be legal there as well throughout the shinobi region but what about here in America? Xander would likely travel back and forth between his two homes frequently, so it would only be natural that their marital status be made official in both locations.

_Maybe we can have __**two**__ weddings!_ she thought as a smile blossomed across her face.

She couldn't help but giggle with happiness as her mind showed her images of herself in both types of wedding dresses, Xander standing by her side wearing a matching outfit. It would without a doubt be the greatest two days of her life and she'd do just about anything to make the images in her mind a reality.

Even if that meant some less than ethical tactics against her rivals, the Chinese Amazons.

Filing away her happy wedding day thoughts, she considered the various effective yet not really harmful options she had at her disposal. There were quite a few to choose from since she'd learned early on that eliminating potential rivals was just as important as making herself irresistible to the man she'd set her eyes on. She knew just what to do to put an unsightly rash on an enemy's face and just how to slip something into her foe's food or drink to keep the girl in the bathroom for hours. Naturally there was some margin for error since each person was different but not once had someone she'd eliminated from the running required serious medical attention. A few pills? Yeah. Some medical cream? Sometimes. Anything involving surgery or potentially life threatening procedures? Not a chance.

She'd need to gather a few ingredients and, while they would've been easy enough to get back home, she'd have to do some searching around here in Sunnydale. Once she had a better idea what she had to work with, she could begin to formulate some plans of attack.

Hearing footsteps, she turned to see her future husband enter the kitchen looking a little annoyed still but not as much as the yelling earlier had made her think he was. Seeing him go to the cupboard, she knew he'd be going for that obscenely sweet cereal she'd given a try once but then had a moment of inspiration that she seized with both hands.

"Why don't you let me cook something for you, Xander-sama?" she asked politely with a smile that'd fit on any wife's face. "If you're going to start training Faith, you're going to need something a little more filling than cereal."

For a minute he paused, obviously thinking it over, but after about half a minute he reached the decision she'd hoped he'd make. "Okay, but keep it simple. I plan on getting Faith up in an hour to start her training. Assuming she lets me, of course."

"I'm sure she will. After seeing you in action last night, she'll probably be very excited once you tell her."

Personally she hoped that the potential Slayer turned down her future husband because, if the girl from Boston said yes, then the training sessions would seriously cut into her seduction schedule. The worst part of it was that she couldn't think of many ways she could cut into such sessions to apply her wiles in an effective manner. Sure, she could offer to help with the training but that'd require that she focus most of her attention on Faith rather than the head of the Uchiha clan.

_Here's hoping Lady Luck smiles on me later. _

_**Eighty-Five Minutes Later, Faith's POV**_

_I wonder what he wants with me._ She thought as she walked to the doors at the end of the hallway, _Probably what most guys want._

Indeed, it was safe to say that her opinion of guys was somewhat jaded but she preferred the term realistic. While there were some that weren't too bad, none of them could escape certain impulses that were hardwired into them. As far as she was concerned, genuinely nice guys were nothing more than a myth, a hypothetical possibility, and that the only ones she'd ever run into were of the half nice variety. Those were the sort that, while nice for the most part, still fell victim to their dicks the moment a girl flashed them some skin and would sell you out so long as the price was right. Seeing as how he helped her take down Kakistos, she figured this little meeting of his was to hand her the bill and that meant either money or being his fuck toy for a couple of days.

If it was the former, she might be willing to pay depending on the amount. If it was the latter, she'd tell him the same thing she'd told every other guy who thought he could make her put out: she'd tell him to go screw himself.

She just hoped that this little meeting wouldn't end like some of the worst of the others had or this was going to be yet another memory she'd have to suppress and yet another man added to the list of those she'd extract payback from if she was Called in the future.

Pushing the doors she'd been directed to open, she was a little surprised to find that it was a dojo straight out of a kung fu movie, complete with wooden practice dummy and wooden weapons. Sitting at the far end of the room was Xander looking, for all intents and purposes, like the master of the dojo, clothes and all. He looked to her as soon as she set foot in the dojo but looking into his eyes, she was somewhat surprised to not see any lust there or any cruelty. However she believed this was merely because she didn't know him all that well or that he simply was quite good at concealing what he was really thinking from others. "The others said you wanted to see me."

"Yeah. I've been thinking about the fight last night," he said with his tone of voice betraying nothing. "You did pretty good against those vamps but you could still get a bit better with the right training."

_Here it comes._ She thought as she felt the buildup to the 'cost' beginning.

"While I don't know how long the Council is going to let you stay in Sunnydale, I'd like to help you get stronger while you're here." He rose to his feet, "I can't promise I'll teach you everything I know but I'd be willing to teach you what I can while you're here."

"Oh yeah? What'll these lessons cost me?" she asked, her skepticism and lack of trust leaking into her voice.

"Nothing. I'm offering to teach you for no other reason than I don't want to see any Slayer, potential or otherwise, die any sooner than necessary." His reply had no tells showing indicating that he was lying or trying to manipulate her. "Besides… I have a feeling that if we compared pasts, we'd come up even in the crappy memories department."

"Yeah, right," she snapped as she saw that he was taking the 'I know what you are going through' route to get into her panties. "Like you have anything that comes even close."

"Well how about I tell you and then you can decide if I've had a great childhood or not." He had no anger but his eyes did narrow a bit, "My step-father was an abusive drunk and for as long as I can remember, he's used me as either a physical or emotional punching bag. Thanks to him I have a medical file at the hospital as thick as most state phone books. Thanks to his drinking, I had to make due with whatever I could afford at the local thrift store when it came to clothes and when I wanted to buy my best friend a birthday gift, I had to sift through the cushions on the couch to afford it.

"On my sixth birthday my parents hired a clown as entertainment but the asshole came to the party drunk, terrorized me and then threw up all over my birthday cake. I can't take my dad anywhere because, whether it's parent teacher or a friend's bamitzvah, he'll ruin it for sure by saying or doing something crappy," Xander explained with more and more emotion leaking through into his voice. "For most of my life my mother was an apathetic doormat who pretty much did whatever my Dad wanted and never once told him where he could stick all his bitching and complaining. She spent most of her time at work, seeing as how my Dad couldn't hold a job to save his life, and most of the time she spent at home was completely taken up keeping the place from violating several health and safety rules. So you tell me Faith, did I have it easy compared to you?"

For a few minutes she simply stood there while her mind tried to figure out if he was bullshitting her or not. It wasn't impossible that she was being fed a boatload of crap but something told her that what he had told her was the truth. That didn't mean he wasn't like other guys, though, and she refused to let down her guard even if she did sorta sympathize with what he'd probably gone through. After all, if all the psycho-babble she'd heard was true, then abuse was a cycle, which meant it was probably only a matter of time before he started acting just like his old man.

Still, it couldn't hurt to see if he had anything worth learning.

"Maybe not, but who says anything you've got to teach is something I want to learn?" she asked with a bit of toughness in her voice. "D taught me some pretty kick ass moves and she was a Watcher. You saying you can top her?"

"Oh, I think I might know a few tricks you'd like to know." Xander replied before walking towards the nearest wall.

For a moment she thought that he was going to punch the wall or maybe get something from it but what happened next was something she never could've predicted. Without any pause or preparation, the teenager who'd offered to train her while she was in Sunnydale began to walk up the side of the wall. Up the FREAKING WALL! It didn't stop there, though, because as he ran out of wall, he began to walk on the CEILING! By the time he came to a stop, he was upside down on the ceiling not ten feet from her.

"So what do you say, Faith?" he asked her with a lopsided grin on his face, "Is this something you'd be interested in learning?"

It took her a moment to regain her wits but when she did she asked, "You mean I… could do **that**?"

"It'll take some time and training but give me a month and yes you should have no trouble walking on the ceiling," he replied with a confident smile on his face. "We just have to get you used to moulding some chakra first but that shouldn't take took long."

"Then let's get started!" she exclaimed without even thinking about what would be best.

To her it looked like a whole new set of options had been placed before her and with them futures that were enticingly uncertain.

They were much better than the inevitable futures that she'd thought would be with her forever.

_**Sunnydale High School, Monday, Noon, Xander's POV**_

"So how was patrol last night?" he asked Buffy as the Scoobies sat down in the student lounge.

"It was pretty normal. A couple of newbies and some kind of cat demon," Buffy replied before taking sip from her can of Pepsi. "Nothing I couldn't handle. You?"

"I ran into something odd but couldn't get a very good look at it before ran off." he replied, thinking back to the thing he'd saved Jeff Orkin from.

"You didn't follow it?" she asked with a bit of surprise.

"I did for a while but it apparently dove into an open manhole cover," he shrugged with a faded bit of frustration. "You know what the sewers are like around here. I could've searched them for hours and not found the thing."

"True," she said before taking another sip.

The truth of the matter was that he was a little angry at himself for not at least giving it a try. Even if he didn't know the layout of the sewers, he still could've tracked it further before giving up and with a trail that fresh, the only thing that might've gotten in his way would've been a demon or group of vamps. His only consolation was that the thing that'd almost killed Jeff hadn't been very big and apparently hadn't been crazy about being spotted. Just as there was a pecking order among vampires and intelligent demons, there was also an instinctive balance that existed between those with more animalistic mentalities. The feral demons knew instinctively when they faced something stronger than themselves and therefore knew to defer to the strong since doing anything else could prove fatal. If this unknown creature saw him as something higher up the pecking order and was one of the more primal minded demons, then it made sense that it'd flee.

_Hopefully the thing'll also keep its head down for a couple of days._

On his second pass he smiled as he saw Oz approaching because he knew how happy it would make Willow once she spotted him. The two of them could be disgustingly cutesy when they wanted to be but it made him happy to know that his best bud had found someone special. In the few short years that the two of them had become friends with Buffy, the redhead and grown quite rapidly away from the mousy teenager she'd been. While she still had some insecurities and issues, they weren't nearly as pronounced as before, giving him hope that by the time she hit twenty, people would be surprised if they were told what she used to be like.

"Hey," Oz said as he sat down next to him.

"Hey yourself," Willow said with a smile before giving him a little peck on the cheek. "You give Debbie your biology notes?"

"Yep," Oz replied in his usual stoic way.

"Good." Willow said with a smile.

He couldn't help but grin a bit at what he saw and wonder if he'd ever find someone who'd inspire such lovey dovey feelings in him. That thought, however, brought him face to face with the three women currently after his affections, with only one of them being even remotely close to getting them. While he might have initially been a bit wary of her aggressive methods, he had to admit that his relationship with Ayeka had come a long way and might be going in the direction she'd wanted all along. The time they'd spent at the Bronze before Faith had shown up had been odd but he'd found himself enjoying the experience more than he would've thought. It wasn't quite like hanging out with the gang but he wouldn't call it love just yet, more like an undefined feeling that had him wanting to experience it a few more times so he could properly define it and put it in its proper place in his mental filing cabinet. Whether the definition did indeed become love rather than the sort of affection that existed between friends or teammates, only time would tell.

He was about to bring up the topic of Faith when a feeling came over him that he recognized from his time in Konoha: killer intent. Normally people only felt it in a vague sort of way, like a feeling that cannot be defined but still compelled you to take action, but for shinobi it was possible to sense it with clarity equal to feeling the elements. When the wind blew, you knew it was the wind. When you saw the flickering light of a fire, you knew it was fire. While his senses weren't as acute as someone who'd been raised in a ninja village, they were good enough to know that someone was looking in the Scooby gang's direction with hate in their eyes as well as murderous intent in their hearts. Instead of obeying his first instinct to quickly look around, he tried instead to do so covertly in a manner that wouldn't tip off the person looking at them.

Too bad his covertness needed some work, because no matter where, he looked he didn't see anyone giving them the evil eye. Whether they were skittish and bailed the moment he turned his head in their direction or were just doing an excellent job of concealing their glaring, he didn't know. Whatever the case, he'd keep an eye out for the next few days or so to see if anyone made a move on the Scooby gang. He couldn't think of anything they'd done recently to piss off someone capable of infiltrating the school but considering all he'd experienced he couldn't say there weren't ways to do so.

_Guess I'll have to use some of those observational skills Ayeka taught me to try and pick Mr. Mad-an-Bad out of the crowd._ He thought as he rose from his position on the couch.

"Where you going, Xan?" Buffy asked from her seat.

"I just remembered I wanted to talk with Giles about the people that supply him with training gear," he replied without completely lying about his reasons. "I have a few things I'd like to add to the dojo that I'm hoping they have in stock."

"See you in class, then." Willow said, accepting his reasons for leaving their little gathering.

With that he began to move away towards the library but, the moment he thought that they'd stopped looking in his direction, he changed his destination to the hallway where he believed the angry observer must've fled down. While doing his best not to appear too obvious about it, he scanned the crowd with his eyes looking for the slightest anomaly or someone who was uneasy at his approach. He thought for a moment about using his Sharingan in spurts to look for inhuman energy but decided against it. Even if he only flashed them on and off quickly, his eyes would still be seen by the students, making trouble for him later when they began talking about it.

For the next half an hour he searched the school for any sign of someone with ill intent towards him or the Scoobies but no one fit the bill. Thus he was left with no other option but to get to class and continue his search later when he had more time. Given that the Scoobies had pretty much all their classes together, he'd be able to watch out for them there without difficulty.

_Well maybe a little difficulty since Lotion and Perfume will be there giving me a headache with their seducing ways,_ he thought, remembering how far the duo had pushed things even with other people present.

While not quite in the realm of exhibitionists, they were definitely willing to do things that often shocked his classmates and were quite good at concealing their efforts from the teachers. Sure, the students had tried a few times to get them in trouble with the teacher but the Amazons had the innocent transfer student routine down to a science. Eventually the teachers started to punish the ones telling the truth, meaning that by now no one would bother trying to put a stop to it and would instead choose to be quiet. That didn't bode well for him since it meant that so long as it didn't make enough noise to catch the teacher's attention or last long enough to be spotted when the instructor turned around, there were a lot of options available to them now.

_Especially since Miss Thompson in the next class is partially deaf,_ he thought with a roll of his eyes since he remembered just how loud you had to speak for her to hear you.

Personally he figured that one of the warrior women would have to cause a small riot to get the teacher to even realize that something was going on behind her back.

The only thing he had in his favor was the fact that the duo wouldn't stoop so low so as to actually try to make out with him in class. They were proud warriors so being seen in anyone's eyes as sluts would be unthinkable to them.

_**Perfume's POV, After School on the Rooftop of the High School**_

"He's looking for something," she said as she watched her future husband cast his eyes about the school's courtyard. "Or someone."

"Yes, but what?" Lotion asked standing at her side.

"Something that is hidden beneath the surface, I believe."

"Then it is our duty as his future wives to find it for him and find it quickly," Lotion said with a smile at the opportunity this turn of events provided them with. "Let's go."

They began to search the area for anything that even hinted at being the reason for the Uchiha's surveying of the place of education. As she did so, she had to believe that she and her fellow Amazon were reaching a turning point in their pursuit of their future husband's affections. Since their arrival in Sunnydale, Lotion's mother had been diligently working to improve their grasp of the English language and, thanks to being surrounded by it at school, they were learning quickly. The only thing they were having a bit of trouble getting a handle on was the various American slang terms that existed, if only because of how numerous they were. Then, of course, there was the problem of figuring out which ones their future husband knew about and understood as opposed to the ones that would leave him utterly confused. She'd thought about watching all the most common movies liked by guys but doing that possessed the downside of making her sound like a dumb parrot. When added to the fact that some lines just didn't even work outside of the fictional settings they originally debuted in…

_American English is much more complex than the language of my people._ _Nevertheless, it is a challenge I will rise to meet __**and**__ overcome._

As she continued to survey the area, something moved just at the periphery of her vision and she almost ignored it but the atypical path it seemed to be following prompted her to give it a second look. What she saw immediately stuck her as odd since, at first glance, it looked to be just another teenage boy but the way it seemed to be advancing on a particular window was not normal when compared to what she'd seen in this town. Stopping, she crouched down and looked at the scene developing below her. When the boy reached his destination, he seemed to be peering into the window at someone with unusual focus. This focus, however, didn't remain stable for long as her eyes could see signs of increasing agitation in his body. Nevertheless, what happened next was something she could not have anticipated and instantly she knew that she had found the threat her future husband had been seeking.

With little warning the teenage boy began to shake all over and as he did so his body began to change, with veins bulging out along with his fingernails became claws. By the time the changes seemed to finish, the form her eyes were fixed upon was no longer completely human but neither was he what she'd classify as a demon. She wasn't given more time to think on it because the half-human creature leapt forward, crashing through the window to what lay within. Knowing that whatever the transformed human was up to it couldn't be good, she leapt from the roof and ran for the shattered window, knowing that Lotion would notice this and follow.

By the time she reached the shattered window, she could already hear sounds of violence coming from within, causing her to reflexively leap inside. What she found when she landed was an African American man she recognized as the school counselor on the floor bleeding from several claw marks across his chest. Standing over him was indeed the teenager who'd crashed through the window but the boy looked to be a twisted parody of what could be considered normal. Indeed, his current form reminded of the last time she'd seen Olay before she'd been banished from the tribe, implying that this young man had ingested some sort of performance enhancing potion. While that made her take him a bit more seriously, it also provided her with a possible way to end this.

As with most things ingested, in time it ran its course and was either expelled from the body or simply broke down into nothingness. It was the same with Olay's potion: pushed hard enough for long enough and the dishonored former Amazon's body used up the liquid, withdrawing its effects quickly enough to result in severe withdrawal symptoms. If the same proved true with the foe before her, all she needed to do was push him to his limits and keep him there until his body burned out whatever he'd used to change himself.

With that in mind she quickly crossed the distance between the two of them and executed a kick intended to force the teenager away from his chosen prey. With only a little surprise she watched as her adversary managed to partially evade her attack but it still had the effect she desired as it sent him into the nearby wall. Watching as he shook off his momentary disorientation, she immediately placed herself between the injured man behind her and the inhuman teenager before her.

"Stupid bitch! This didn't concern you!" the teenager exclaimed as he looked at her and considered his options. "Now I'm gonna show you what happens when you piss me off!"

With that the fool charged her head on, his mind full of anger, and for a moment she almost shook her head in disappointment but, as her sensei had taught her, she maintained her focus. Even when facing an inferior opponent, a true warrior must never lose their focus for if they do then even a fool might succeed in landing a fatal blow. Thus she took every attack the enemy launched seriously and evaded with the best of skill before attacking when an opening presented itself. A blow to the stomach followed by an elbow to the back dropped the moron to the ground gasping for air, struggling to rise again. Did he not sense the gap that existed between the two of them? Could he not see that no matter how many times he attacked her, he would never succeed unless she let him?

Probably not and such was the weakness of those who relied on anger and dishonorable methods to achieve their goals.

With this in mind she delivered a kick to the fool's head, rendering him unconscious but not doing any permanent harm. As the one at her feet slipped into unconsciousness, she watched as he spasmed back into a more human form and it was through this that she recognized him as a student at the high school. She didn't remember him from any of her classes but she'd seen him a few times in the hallways with a young woman she presumed was his girlfriend, based on how close they appeared.

It didn't change what she needed to do now, sadly.

Picking up her unconscious foe, she slung him over her shoulder so that she could carry him to her future husband and his allies. They would know how best to deal with someone that normal law enforcement officials would be incapable of handling on their own.

"Where…a-are you taking him?" asked the wounded member of the faculty.

"Where he will not harm anyone else," she replied as she began walking towards the door to the office.

"The police?" the counselor asked, as though he was mostly certain of her answer.

"Those with the authority to deal with such people, yes," she allowed, hoping that the mild vagueness of her response would be enough to keep her out of trouble later.

"G-good…" the counselor said before losing consciousness.

For a moment she worried that, by the time she dropped off her unconscious foe at the library and returned, the man would be dead but thankfully the sound of someone else entering the room took care of that.

"I will take the counselor to the infirmary." Lotion said as she moved to match action to her words.

"Good."

As she began to walk down the halls, she couldn't help but continue to grin as she imagined how this victory would improve her standing with Xander. Two threats dealt with thanks to Amazon intervention while her rivals were nowhere to be see in either battle.

She could feel the lead she and Lotion had growing and, by year's end, she was confident that none would be capable of overcoming it.

No one!

_**Sunnydale High School Library, An Hour Later, Anko's POV**_

"Just what the world needs!" she said with disdain as she finished putting up a barrier up to reinforce the book cage. "Another Orochimaru!"

She'd only arrived a little while ago but what she'd seen had been enough for her to put the basic facts together. The kid in the cage had concocted some kind of potion for an unknown purpose and it had resulted in twisting the teenager's mind enough to attack others savagely. It was good luck that the Chinese Amazons Perfume and Lotion had been around to keep the punk from actually killing anyone. Now, though, they had to decide what to do with their prisoner and soon since keeping the attempted murderer in the library for too long would only attract unwanted attention.

In her opinion they should purge the kid's system of whatever he'd taken in and then drop him off at the local police station. Even if they were as incompetent as Xander-kun made them out to be, with Platt as a witness they'd be hard pressed to find a reason to let him go free. From there it would only be a matter of searching the young man's locker for the formula and anything else connected to the enhancement so that they could destroy all of it. However she would wait for the entire group to have their say just in case someone else had a better idea of how to deal with this.

"You give this guy too much credit, Anko-sensei," Xander-kun said from his position by the main library table. "He might've figured out a way to turn himself into Mr. Hyde but he's nowhere near Snake Face's league of freakiness."

She couldn't argue that but she could definitely count that as a possible future if the boy hadn't been caught.

"Maybe, but I still think the little freak needs a reality check," Hana said before curling her nose a bit. "I might not know what this shithead drank or ate but I can smell it coming off of him. Whatever it was, I seriously doubt it'd be healthy for him in the long run."

"Is there any way to cure him?" Willow Rosenberg asked, showing compassion for the person she barely knew.

"I have some experience with poisons and getting them out of the system but it'll depend on how deeply rooted the stuff is," she replied as she began to review the jutsu's in her mind. "If he's been taking it for a while, going cold turkey too quickly might kill him."

"Then let us hope that this is a recent venture the lad chose to undertake." Rupert Giles stated, sounding quite disappointed at the young man's stupidity.

"Looks like we won't have to wait long to find out," Slayer Summers stated as the faint sounds of the prisoner waking up filled the air.

Looking over, she saw the blonde's words to be true as the young man was beginning to push himself to his feet. It didn't look like he realized where he was at first but, by the time he was halfway up, the truth hit the kid like a ton of bricks. Immediately the potions amateur became more energetic and began to look for a means to escape, only to find none save the slight hope of the door to the book cage. Predictably the teenager tried to force it open but her barrier automatically flared into existence, showing him how futile as well as painful it'd be to attempt such a thing.

"Ahhhh! What the fuck!?" cried the young man, whom she now recalled was named Pete as he backed away from the bars of the cage.

"That's something I think we'd all like to know, kid," she said, putting her best 'you are in trouble' voice into play. "Mind telling us why you tried to kill Platt and what you've done with yourself?"

"What? Who the hell're you!?" Pete asked, going defensive at first before changing to defiance. "I don't have to tell you shit!"

Deciding to show him just how much danger he was really in, she turned her back to him, walked a good five or so feet away and then whirled around while throwing both her hands at him. "Sen'eijashu!" Three snakes flew from within her sleeves towards the bar-obstructed face of Pete, stopping just half an inch from the barrier.

Slowly she recalled the serpents, smiling in a moderately bloodthirsty way, and once they'd disappeared into her sleeves she menacingly began to approach the young man's position. She could tell that her move had greatly compromised his courage and that, with a little more prodding, he'd probably tell her everything she wanted to know. "Now, what was that about you not having to tell me shit?" she asked in a menacingly friendly manner. "If you don't speak up, I just might have to open the door and come a lot closer. Close enough to… **bite**!"

This was enough to cause the little fool to back as far away from her as possible, making it clear he knew what she was threatening all too well.

"I…I just wanted to make myself better and s-so I did some research and came up with a mixture that would maximize my body's potential," Pete replied shakily, fear propelling his words onward. "I didn't want Debbie to leave me! If Platt and Jeff had just stayed away from her, everything would've been fine!"

_Not the most pathetic excuse for trying to kill someone but it comes pretty close._ She thought with mild disbelief at the explanation.

"So you went all Hyde on people just so your girlfriend wouldn't dump you?" Xander asked rhetorically in disbelief. "You couldn't have just bought her a couple of nice presents or something?"

"You could never understand… to have something so great come into your life but know that it could be snatched away at any time." Pete protested with a voice barely above a whisper.

"Everyone knows what that's like, Pete," Xander-kun said with conviction. "It's called having friends, family and good times. Everyone knows that these things can be taken away in an instant but you don't see them turning themselves into monsters to stop it."

Silence reigned after that before she decided to move things along a bit.

"Right now you've got a choice before you, Pete," she said in a no nonsense tone of voice. "You can either tell us where to find everything about that potion of yours so we can destroy it or you can keep quiet and we find a more… amusing way to make sure you never try something this stupid again. Your choice."

Minutes ticked by and she could see his fear of losing his precious potion warring with his fear of what she'd do to him for amusement. At the moment neither fear was strong enough to outright defeat the other but, given enough time, she was confident she'd get what she needed.

Too bad Hana wasn't in the mood for 'eventually'.

"Look, asswipe, I don't have all day waiting for you to rub two brain cells together!" Hana growled as she got right up next to the cage, her more feral features becoming more pronounced, "Now either you tell us what we want to know or I turn you over to my girls as a chew toy!"

The Inuzuka girl's three canine partners looked at the boy in the cage and bared their teeth, growling in an effectively menacing manner. She had to admit that the sight was quite intimidating but it proved to be a bit over the top since, instead of caving in and answering the questions, the boy instead fainted due to the overload of fright.

"Guess this means we have to search for his potion gear the old fashioned way," Xander said with a bit of disappointment in his classmate's loss of consciousness. "I'll check his locker while Hana takes her girls around the school to see if she can sniff out any other places he might've stashed stuff."

"Good plan. Bring anything you find back here," she ordered, taking on a mindset more appropriate to the head of a shinobi team. "Once I get a look at them, I'll have a better idea of how to treat the idiot, as well as make sure he can't do it to himself again. Get going!"

With that order her team left the library, along with the rest of the youngsters, in search of the materials needed, leaving only her and Giles behind in the library.

"Would you like some tea, Ms. Mitarashi?" Giles asked as he moved to the entrance of his office.

"Sure. I could do with something to drink before the other get back," she replied with a thankful grin as she sat down next to the main table.

With a little luck it'd relax her enough so that she could use her jutsu on Pete and purge the unnatural elements from his body once she had a better idea of what they were.

Despite her low opinion of his intelligence, she would help him as best she could in the hope that he wouldn't repeat past mistakes.

_**Team Anko HQ, An Hour After Sunset, Xander's POV**_

"I hope that idiot learns his lesson," he said as they settled in the living room of the HQ. "If what you found out from his notes is right, Anko-sensei is right then he could've easily killed himself with that stuff."

"He should be alright. Giles is already speaking with the suppliers of the mystical ingredients of Pete's formula," Anko-sensei said with confidence in her voice. "They'll be warned against selling the little idiot anything else."

"What about the non-magical stuff? Couldn't he make something out of them?" he asked, unsure about whether or not everything had been tied up in terms of loose ends.

"Nothing like what he made to turn him into that twisted form," she replied without hesitation. "Scientists the world over have tried to come up with some sort of super soldier serum for centuries. They've never been able to do anything big without borrowing something from the supernatural."

He supposed that made sense.

It was somehow hard to believe that one academically bright could manage what hundreds of men and women before him had failed to accomplish with far greater resources. He knew that pretty much every government on the planet, both past and present, funded projects of various levels morality in order to come up with weapons both offensive and defensive centered. Among those projects were, no doubt, efforts to increase the combat potential of the troops, with some of them being specifically set up without humanity or morality even being considered, much less required. Given that he had yet to see soldiers capable of anything even approaching Buffy's level of strength, it was safe to say that no significant progress had been made on that front.

When you added that to the fact that the majority of the world wasn't in the know about the supernatural and that meant that the likelihood of them acquiring mystical ingredients was pretty slim.

"Good. The only Mr. Hyde I want to see is the ones made by Hollywood," he said with a nod of satisfaction in the fact that Pete's problem was satisfactorily solved.

Anko-sensei opened her mouth as if to say something when her expression changed to that of a professional shinobi perceiving a threat. Seeing this he followed her example and stretched out with his senses to see if he could pick up on what had caught her attention. As seconds passed without anything of note, he decided he'd up things to the next level and activated his Sharingan. It was then that he spotted a mass of chakra in humanoid form leaping over the wall of the HQ before walking at a sedate pace towards the main building. Instantly he could see that it wasn't a normal person's chakra due to the sheer strength he could see in it and that told him it was a ninja he was looking at. However he knew where the rest of the team was and the ANBU hadn't shown his face since their little 'negotiation session', so it was doubtful that Mr. Mask was deciding to put in an appearance. With the possibilities dwindling, he decided to err on the side of caution and with careful movements reached beneath the cushions of the couch to the hidden compartment containing four kunai. Wrapping his fingers around the hilt of one, he got ready to bring it up to defend or attack the moment he managed to figure out if the approaching person was an ally or an enemy.

Hearing footsteps approaching on the walkway that wrapped around the outside of the main building, he prepared himself for the possible confrontation to come. As the door began to slide to the left, he wondered who might have decided to pay them a visit and prayed it wouldn't be anyone too tough.

The person that was revealed was the **last** person he'd expected to see and, at the same time, he knew that a visit from this man could very well mean bad news.

"Yo! Anko-san. Xander-kun." Said one Hatake Kakashi in his usual laid back manner.

"Kakashi-san! What are you doing here?" Anko-san asked with moderate surprise at the new arrival.

"There's been a development that Tsunade-sama believed you should be informed of." Kakashi replied as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him, "Especially Xander-kun, since he is the recognized head of the Uchiha clan."

It didn't take a genius to figure out that whatever the jounin had to tell them, it had something to do with either Itachi or Sasuke or both.

"Well spit it out then," he said, his concern clear in his voice.

For a moment the copy ninja said nothing, almost as though he was trying to think of the best way to convey what he had to say, but it didn't take long for the man with the Sharingan eye to come to a decision. "Uchiha Sasuke has left the village to join with Orochimaru." Kakashi revealed with traces of regret in his voice.

"WHAT!?" was pretty much the universal question asked by both him and Anko-sensei.

That one sentence he'd just heard had been enough to blow the rest of the world away, leaving him with nothing but the words that made it up in his mind. Images both of his cousin and of the psycho serpent man flashed in his mind but, no matter how he tried to connect the two, it was inconceivable to him that the two would ever join forces with one another. At the same time, though, he didn't think that the man would lie about something like this and therefore more information was greatly desired.

"What happened?" Anko-sensei asked with a voice that was for reports.

"As you know, Sasuke has been obsessed for a number of years with exacting his revenge on his brother Itachi for the massacre of the Uchiha clan. Everything he's done since that night has been meant to aid him towards that end," Kakashi explained as he told them of the youngest Uchiha. "I'd been a little worried when he was first assigned to me but, as the missions went by, I thought that he was beginning to let go of his hate. Then the Chuunin exam came and with it, Orochimaru.

"You know most of what happened, how Sasuke had attacked by Orochimaru and infected with the Cursed Seal, but what you don't know was that when he faced off against Gaara, he saw the Sand shinobi as a test." Copy Ninja Kakashi said with eyes that were no completely in the present, "A test to see how far he'd come in his training and how close he was to being ready to seek out his brother. Despite using the power Orochimaru gave him, it was Naruto who defeated Gaara in the end and this angered Sasuke."

"Why? Naruto's his teammate, right?" he asked, not wanting the situation to be as bad. "Shouldn't he be happy that his pal is getting stronger?"

"I had hoped that would be the case. However Naruto has long had the reputation of being a poor student in the Academy and no one save a few have believed that he'd ever amount to anything." Kakashi replied, continuing with his explanation. "To be outdone by someone who has never excelled at anything didn't make sense to Sasuke and made it look as though his training was meaningless. It didn't help that Itachi defeated him so easily when they met soon after. I'd still hoped that I could keep him from going down the dark road he'd set foot on and probably would have if Orochimaru hadn't sent five of his Sound ninja to fan the flames of hatred within him."

Anger began to cloud his features as he could all to easily see how Snake Face had probably waited for just the right moment before using his cousin's vendetta to his advantage. More than before, he seriously wanted to find the freak and tear him to pieces for poisoning others for his own ends, even though he knew he'd die in the process. Sasuke had been the only family that he had remaining that wasn't a wanted rogue ninja and, thanks to the snake's manipulations, his cousin would be lucky if all that happened was a lifetime of imprisonment.

"Whatever they did to him, it was enough to motivate him to finally leave the village for good. According to Sakura, who spoke with him before he left the village, he'd become frustrated with his lack of progress and believed that if he was to get his revenge, Konoha wasn't the place where he'd gain the power he needed," explained the copy ninja as he continued with the briefing. "He knocked her out before she could alert the rest of the village and, by the time she regained consciousness, he was already far away. Tsunade-sama assigned the task of retrieving him to Naruto, Shikamaru and the others but, while they were able to defeat the five sound ninja, they failed to bring Sasuke back to the village. Some of them almost died in the attempt."

Remembering the energetic blonde kid and the young man who'd become chuunin with him, he hoped that they were well and hadn't suffered too much thanks to his cousin's foolish vengeance. While he hadn't had much time to get to know either of them while he was in Konoha, he'd been able to tell within a few minutes of meeting them that they were a lot like he was where it mattered. Sure, they'd grown up in the shinobi region of the world but they were still young teenagers where it mattered, with a few ninja bits added on for flavor. Thinking of them beaten bloody on the floor of a forest or wrapped in bandages in the Konoha hospital did not agree with him at all.

"They all survived and, when I last saw them, they were going about their lives. Nevertheless, Sasuke is by now being instructed by Orochimaru in all manner of forbidden jutsu and, with his near fanatical devotion towards his quest for revenge, he will not care what he loses in the process." Kakashi explained with a fearful tone of voice. "Indeed, if what Naruto said is true, then Sasuke is to be Orochimaru's new vessel in a little over two and a half years."

"Vessel?! What do you mean **vessel!?**" he asked, not liking the term.

"Orochimaru's Fushi Tensei technique, the jutsu he's been using to extend his life, allows him to transfer his mind and soul into another's body. It is his goal to transfer into Sasuke's body, thereby obtaining Sharingan without the flaws that transplanting the eyes into his own body would cause," Kakashi replied with seriousness now dominating his voice. "Fortunately Naruto and the others were able to delay Sasuke long enough that Orochimaru was forced to transfer his spirit into another host body. From what we've been able to determine, he needs to undergo this transfer once every three years but we have no information to even theorize why this is."

"B-but why would Sasuke let him do that?" he asked, barely able to comprehend the horror of what Snake Face intended to do to his cousin. "If Orochimaru does that then it won't be him taking out Itachi, it'll be old Pale Face!"

"I don't think it matters to Sasuke if he's the one who kills Itachi or if it's merely his body so long as the last thing his brother sees is his face glaring down at him." Kakashi replied with a bit of sadness over the mindset of his student.

Didn't care that he'd be taken over by a monster!? Doesn't care if he ceases to EXIST!?

He was partially shaken by how far his cousin was willing to go in order to avenge the deaths of all those Uchiha Itachi had slain but with that came growing anger. What kind of fool was his cousin? To willingly throw away everything that made life worth living just for the sake of ending the life of one person? Madness! While he might not feel the loss of his mother's family as keenly as Sasuke probably did, he did know what it was like to hate someone or something enough to seek revenge. He hated vampires like few other things in the world for what had happened to Jesse and it was that hate that had played a strong role in his decision to help Buffy fight. It was a hatred that was fueled by the experiences he would not be able to share with the guy who'd been his brother. It was a fury that was stoked every time they came upon a victim of a vampire attack too late to do anything but silently promise to be quicker next time.

Through all that, though, he knew that if he ever had to choose between his precious people and revenge then it'd be no choice at all. He'd choose his loved ones.

So why couldn't Sasuke see that? Why couldn't his cousin realize that there's no point to revenge if you threw everything else away?

The more he thought about it, the more pissed he became at the utter stupidity of his cousin and he knew that if the former student of Kakashi walked in right then, he would probably kick the crap out of him until morning. He would yell at his relation and do his best to make the fool realize how big of a mistake it was to sacrifice everything just for one single moment of revenge. He was sure that both Anko-sensei and Kakashi could see the anger on his face but they didn't deserve to be the receivers of his rage or endure a ranting session by him. "Thanks for coming here to tell me this yourself, Kakashi-san," he said, reigning in his anger as best he could. "I know that Konoha must have a boatload of missions more important than this that need doing."

"It was no trouble at all, plus it was the least I could do for the head of Sasuke's clan." Kakashi said formally but with a hint of sympathy.

"Will you be staying long?" he asked, figuring that since he owned the place he'd best act like a proper host. "We have a few empty bedrooms so we can put you up for the night if you want."

"Thank you. My flight back doesn't leave until noon tomorrow." Kakashi replied, nodding in acceptance of the offer.

"No problem. Now I'm sure that you and Anko-sensei probably have a few things you need to talk about, so I'm going to head to the dojo for a bit and train." he said as he got up from his seat and walked to the door that'd lead to the hallway. "See ya!"

With that he closed the door behind him and began to move towards the dojo, where he hoped a little light training would take the edge off of what he was feeling at the moment. It wasn't just anger at his cousin's foolish quest for revenge but also sadness that the last of his blood kin was now considered a criminal by Konoha, if not the shinobi region at large. He knew that Sasuke wasn't exactly a people person and that he was a bit cocky, but he was also family. After seeing his mother's true self, he'd been so hopeful of meeting the rest of her family since he wanted to believe that they would be far superior to the Harris'. When he'd arrived in Konoha and learned that, aside from Sasuke, the rest of his clan was either dead or considered to be the worst of outlaws, he'd taken solace in the fact that there was at least one link to his heritage left.

Now he had no links to the past of the Uchiha clan.

Even if his cousin returned to Konoha tomorrow, he would still face harsh punishment for allying himself with Orochimaru and even if death was evaded as a punishment, imprisonment would almost certainly replace it.

Opening to the dojo, he moved over to the wooden training dummy in the corner of the room and began to go through the patterns he had stored in his mind from Halloween, as well as what Anko-sensei had taught him since officially becoming a part of her team. He started out slow, as he'd been taught, but then began to speed up after every successfully completed set until he was going as fast as a person could go without having something extra. Then he began to channel chakra into his body in order to increase its speed even more but did his best to make sure that he wouldn't be sacrificing technique in the process. It'd been his intention the moment that he'd left the living room that perhaps by doing this his mind would become so focused on the movements that, for a time, he'd be able to block out what he'd learned minutes ago. It was twenty minutes before he had no choice but to accept that simply working out wouldn't be enough to clear his head.

Slamming his fist into the wood one more time, he tried to come to a decision about what to do with what he was feeling, with what he'd learned, but it all came down to one thing.

He wanted to wrest his cousin from the grasp of not only Orochimaru but also the obsession that revenge had become for Sasuke.

He knew it'd be impossible for things to go completely back to the way that they were before the idiotic decision had been made but, if he could just free his cousin from darkness that plagued him, that'd be enough. While he might not have an idea about how to manage prying the claws of vengeance out of his relative's heart, he did know one way of making Sasuke realize that he'd made a mistake hooking up with Orochimaru.

He knew that Sasuke went to old Snake Face because he probably thought that the criminal could teach him techniques much quicker than normal Konoha training methods allowed. It was also likely that his cousin was willing to allow the chalk-faced freak to perform procedures on him in order to accelerate the growth of his personal chakra capacity. If he could train his ass off for the next few years and come out of it just as strong, if not stronger, than Sasuke when they met next, it'd be all the proof he needed to make it clear to his cousin that he could've staying in Konoha to become strong. It'd take proof with all the impact of defeat in a sparring match to break through his cousin's foolish way of thinking.

With that in mind he had a new mission set before him along with his duties as head of the Uchiha clan: To become as strong as he could within the next two to three years so that when he saw Sasuke next, he'd pound the truth into his cousin's thick skull, whether the emotional Uchiha wanted it or not.

He would NOT lose another precious person to the darkness.

_**Ayeka's POV, The Next Day**_

_Something's wrong. _She thought looking at her future husband perform a series of kata's at high speed on the platform in the courtyard.

It was the first thing to come to mind when she first laid eyes on him and, no matter how much she tried to use the facts of yesterday to explain, nothing fit. Whatever had happened, it was driving Xander-sama to take his training to a whole new level. Not that he hadn't taken the training sessions Anko-sensei put them through seriously but he'd always treated what he was being taught as though it was something he'd learn when he learned it. Now, though, he looked as though he wanted to master the lessons he'd been taught as quickly and as efficiently as he could so he focused as much of his attention on what he was doing as he could.

What had happened in the last twelve hours to change him so?

Deciding it'd be best to ask Anko-sensei first before stumbling into a conversation with the man with whom she'd be wed, she went to the kitchen where her teacher was reading the local newspaper while sipping on her morning tea. Despite being in Sunnydale for only a short while, they'd still fallen into a routine already and were comfortable at their HQ just as they'd be back at the village.

"Sensei? Do you know what's up with Xander?" she asked casually enough, coming to a stop at the side of the table. "He looks a little too serious with his training."

As her teacher looked up at her, she could see immediately that something serious had happened and as a result the jounin looked conflicted about whether or not to answer. With a brief moment where both eyes were closed, her teacher seemed to reach a decision on the matter and so looked her right in the eyes before speaking.

"Last night we were visited by Hatake Kakashi on orders from Tsunade-sama," Anko-sensei replied with the utmost seriousness in her voice. "He came to let us know of a development that had occurred back in Konoha."

"Development? What development?" she asked, surprised that a shinobi of such fame had come to visit them.

"Uchiha Sasuke has deserted the village and joined with the S-class criminal Orochimaru." Anko replied with a trace of anger as she spoke the name of her former teacher.

From there her instructor told her everything that they'd been told by the copy ninja and, when there was nothing more to be said, she thought on what she'd learned. Knowing what she now did and seeing it in context with Xander's current actions, it all became clear to her what was going on. Her future husband would be greatly bothered by what had happened to his cousin and would either seek to bring Sasuke in himself or prove to his cousin that he'd made a mistake. Either possibility would require that the head of the Uchiha clan become much stronger than he currently was and that meant serious training. Knowing this, she knew what she would be doing when she wasn't trying to forge a place for herself in his heart.

With resolve in her heart, she quickly went about preparing her usual breakfast and, once she'd finished eating, she returned to her room to get into suitable training clothes. Not her usual mission clothes but rather something that she could afford to lose while never letting him forget what she could be for him. A pair of loose fitting pants along with a tight fitting sleeveless shirt that would make it impossible to getting a grip on anything while accentuating her curves nicely was her final choice. Picking up her ninja gear but not strapping it on just yet, she left her room and made her way outside to the platform where she'd last seen Xander. Helping him to train would be an excellent way to get closer to him and put her in a special category that the Amazon bitches wouldn't be able to match.

However when she finally arrived, she saw a sight she didn't expect: Hana was on the platform with Xander, sparring with him.

As far as she'd known the Inuzuka girl had still been in bed and so it was not expected at all that she'd beat her to the role of sparring partner for the Uchiha. Seeing them exchange blows, she could see they were allowing light contact but nothing that'd leave anything more than light bruises or shallow cuts behind. It was an interesting pairing, their two styles of fighting, but the thing that had her increasingly concerned was that Hana actually seemed to be having **fun** going a few rounds with 'Wannabe'. Not the sort of fun the feral fury would have in kicking the ass of someone she didn't like, nor was it quite the sort of fun one would have taking on an interesting challenge. As she tried to classify it she remembered a few times in the past where her teammate had behaved in an unusual manner in connection with Xander-sama. Could it be that Hana-?!

_Bullshit! She doesn't think of him that way! _She thought, rejecting the possibility before it could take hold.

Still, as she watched Xander get knocked to the ground after a series of successful hits by Hana, it would be best to insert herself into this little training session sooner rather than later.

"Xander-sama! Mind if I join in?" she said as she tossed her equipment to the side of the platform before leaping onto it.

Watching him get back to his feet, she took a moment to admire how the light sheen of sweat made him look before letting the moment pass. She hoped that at some point during the course of the training he'd lose the shirt for one reason or another so that she could gaze upon his developing form. She knew that his training with the weights he'd gained from Gai-san had helped melt away much of the fat and that the other forms of training helped to tone the muscles beneath. While she didn't think he'd ever have muscles so large and defined as some of the more strength-oriented ninja had, she was sure they'd be impressive nonetheless.

"Sure. The more help the better," he replied with a half grin on his face. "Just let me have another twenty minutes with Hana here and then you can tag in."

"Sure," she said, not wanting to sound selfish or bratty by trying to force herself into the role of partner.

Moving off to the edge of the platform, she sat down and resolved to watch Xander-sama in preparation for her match with him. She would examine how he fought, see what moves he favored and when it came time to fight she would be ready to push him to his limits. True, she was proficient in mid-to-long range combat but she wasn't a complete slouch in the area of taijutsu and, with enough preparation, she was sure she could give him a real workout.

Minutes passed as the match between Inuzuka Hana and Uchiha Xander continued but it was time well spent as she could see her future husband gradually getting better. While he still got knocked down from time to time, he soon became quite good at not being knocked down the same way twice and capitalized on any openings presented. Not that her female friend wasn't giving as good as she got but the fact that Xander was making progress on the fly was impressive.

By the time the twenty minutes were up, the two of them had managed to work their way into a stalemate of sorts, with neither ninja managing to gain a respectable advantage over the other.

"Thanks for the warm up, Wannabe," Hana said with only minor signs that she'd been given any sort of workout. "You keep training hard and maybe I'll even have to put some effort into sparring with you."

"Oh, please! You're sweating up a storm right now," Xander-sama said derisively with a half-smile. "I had you working hard and you know it!"

"Don't delude yourself, Xander! I've got twice the amount of experience you do and twice as much training," Hana said, confidently crossing her arms across her bosom. "You're still a few years away from being MY equal!"

"Hai, hai! That's enough of that," she said, getting in between the two of them. "You'll never get anywhere if you let distractions like this keep popping up. If you'll get out of the ring, Hana, my sparring session with Xander-sama can begin."

"Whatever!" Hana said as she casually walked to the edge of the stone platform, hopping off.

The Inuzuka girl didn't leave the area like she'd hoped, instead choosing to sit down on the ground from 'ringside', but that wouldn't affect her plans all that much… at least not until Hana started running commentary on the match, but she'd detonate that bridge when she came to it.

"Alright, Xander-sama! Let's see if you can handle Mishima Ayeka!" she said with a tone that implied hidden meaning.

She wondered how long it would be before he worked out what those other meanings were.


	4. Trouble Aplenty is Coming Home

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and associated companies. I make no profit off of this fanfic whatsoever and have no intention of the changing that in my lifetime. I write only because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my work. Therefore I would appreciate it if you would refrain from contacting your lawyers to tell them to sue me. I can promise you that whatever money you get from me won't even cover half your legal fees.

_**Lotion's POV, First Period, Sunnydale High School, The Next Day**_

_Where's Perfume?_ she thought as she looked at the two entrances to the classroom. _Class starts in five minutes._

She knew that the two of them had arrived at school together almost half an hour ago but then her fellow Amazon had gone off, saying she had something she needed to check on. She'd been a bit suspicious at first considering the girl's… hobby, but her mother had assured her that she'd performed daily checks on the dark haired Amazon's book bag at the start of each day. Nothing potentially humiliating was inside when the bag exited their apartment in the morning and nothing was found in it when they arrived at night. With that knowledge she was reasonably sure that nothing bad would happen that would make their time at the school more difficult or damage the progress they'd made they their future husband.

Nevertheless, as time went on, she began to worry that Perfume had somehow gotten into trouble.

Turning her head away from the doors, she decided to focus her thoughts on something decidedly more appealing: her future husband, Uchiha Xander. He was sitting to her right and was admirably trying to make it appear as though she didn't exist, but that act didn't fool her for a moment. He obviously thought that if he showed no reaction to her presence or her actions, that this would discourage her from further attempts to seduce him. Little did he realize that she knew enough about him by now that she could see his indifference for what it truly was, so she wasn't deceived at all. She knew that he was quite the passionate individual who often let his emotions have equal say with his mind when determining what course of action to take. When added to the fact that he was a **young** man, then there was no way that he could remain completely oblivious to her beauty or not take a moment to imagine the perks of marrying her.

Considering how most young men reacted when they saw her, she'd at first been a bit puzzled as to why he was so resistant to the idea. While not too arrogant, she did have great confidence in her appearance knew how to get a man's attention. Not that she'd fancied another man before meeting the Uchiha but some missions outside her tribe required that she 'distract' certain guards. As such, she had been taught various ways to get their 'attention' and keep it long enough for her fellow Amazons to accomplish the mission. She'd been using some of the subtler ones on her future husband for a couple of weeks now and, while she'd gotten reactions from him, they hadn't been quite as potent as she'd hoped. One of the reasons why she wanted Perfume to get here was so that they could jointly raise the level of their little game with Xander-sama as a prelude to cornering him mentally.

Looking back to the door, she was happy to see her fellow Amazon coming towards the front entrance of the class but instantly could tell something was up. Perfume had something in her hand and seemed quite a bit more enthusiastic than she usually was when they had a class with Xander in it. She didn't have long to wait since her co-wife to be was soon in front of her desk but, before she could inquire as to what the reason was, Perfume grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the room.

"What's got you so worked up?" she asked once they came to a stop.

"I just found the perfect way to get Xander in the right frame of mind!" Perfume said before thrusting the piece of paper she'd been carrying out into her hands.

Looking down at it, she could instantly see what had her sister Amazon so excited.

While not completely well versed in American culture, she knew enough to know what a homecoming dance was and what the competition for homecoming queen entailed. The homecoming dance was one of the biggest events of the school year, where teenagers asked each other out to a formal dance and some campaigned for the title of homecoming queen. From what she had seen in American movies, in an effort to better understand the style of romance her future husband preferred, the homecoming dance could very well be the event that set the dating tone for the entire year. If some lucky girl managed to get elected homecoming queen, she would be considered the elite among their gender in the school for quite a few weeks. While she wasn't sure whether or not there was a homecoming king competition, she presumed that whomever the queen came to the event with as her date would, at least unofficially, become the king. Imagining how such a date would turn out, she could easily see what had caused Perfume to get so excited.

"What do you think?" Perfume asked with a smile on her face.

"I think we just found a way to gain even more territory with our future husband," she replied with a mirroring smile. "With the right plan, he won't know what hit him!"

"Yep!" Perfume said with a nod.

"Ms. Fium? Ms. Xion? If you'll please take your seats we can begin the class?" came the teacher's voice from the entrance to the classroom.

"Of course, sensei," she said formally before bowing respectfully.

She and her fellow Amazon returned to their seats but, every once in a while, they turned their eyes to Xander, imagining how he'd look wearing what the Americans called a tuxedo. She had to admit that, while she preferred the formal occasion wear of her people, her imagination did paint a rather interesting image of her future husband in the clothes native to his country.

Then again, she had a feeling she'd find just about anything he wore interesting so long as it didn't conceal his fit body too much. After all, from what she'd seen so far, he was easily superior to just about any other man she'd seen in her tribe or in the surrounding area. When added to the fact that he came from superior stock and she might very well have pursued him even if he had not successfully defeated her in battle.

With law and her own desires working side by side, it was no wonder that she was so driven to catch the one she would wed.

The only question she needed to answer was how long it would take to bring him around to her way of thinking and how could she neutralize the threat that his two teammates represented. While it was true that only the shameless one known as Ayeka had openly made her intentions known when it came to the Uchiha, that did not necessarily mean that the other one could be dismissed out of hand. They were teammates, after all, so it was only natural for them to help one another and the feral girl had made it clear she didn't like Amazons. Therefore interference from dog-faced girl was very likely and any plans had to make sure to take her into account.

_Then again, there's not much they can do since they aren't students here,_ she thought as the teacher began speaking. _Xander might be able to invite one of them as a guest but there'd still be limits on what they could do._

Even if one of them came along as a guest, they wouldn't be able to do anything overly dramatic or violent without risking immediate ejection from the event. As such, she was confident that, if limited to a battle of words and subtle actions that she would be able to claim victory, if not immediately, then certainly by the end of the night.

After all it was common sense that, when a fight was two against one, the side with superior numbers always emerged the winner.

Unless, of course, the side that had fewer numbers turned out to have superior skill, in which case the outcome was anyone's guess.

As half her mind considered the possibilities of the night in question while the other half paid attention to what the teacher was saying, she could feel a tingle began to flow through her veins. It was a sensation that she only felt when confronted with a truly interesting challenge and, while she'd experienced it to lesser degrees since arriving in Sunnydale, this was the first time it brought a smile to her face; the smile of the huntress.

_No matter where my prey goes, I will pursue and I will triumph!_ she thought as she focused her gaze sharply on Uchiha Xander.

_**Ayeka's POV, The Next Day, Noon**_

"Those… those… AAHHH!" she exclaimed as she watched the scene below with angry frustration.

At first she hadn't understood what was going on with six different teenage girls, three of whom she knew somewhat, who were going about the school courtyard speaking with everyone or handing out flyers. It was only when she managed to snag one of them that she realized that a previously unknown threat had emerged in the form of Sunnydale High School's homecoming dance. More important than that, there was a competition involved where the winner was elected homecoming queen, thus being elevated above all others of her gender. That explained what she was seeing in the courtyard below as efforts by the six teenagers below to win the favor of the majority of the student body so that, when the time came to vote, they'd win.

There was just one problem: both of those Amazon BIMBOS were trying to become homecoming queen!

She knew that they didn't care what the rest of the student body thought about them. This was all just some scheme to steal **her** Xander-sama for themselves by showing off in front of everyone that he knew. It pissed her off to no end not only because of how effective it could be but because it was something she herself would've tried if she'd been able to insert herself into the school as a student. Unfortunately that wasn't a part of their mission and that meant, no matter how much she wanted to claim victory over her rivals, she couldn't match their efforts like she wanted. When it came to contests like these that were, for the most part, popularity contests, you needed time to establish yourself among the people around you. Even if she convinced Anko-sensei to pull strings to get her into the school as a transfer student, it'd be at least a week before everything would be in place. By then it would be too close to the dance for her to overcome the leads that her rivals had over her, making it that much more embarrassing when she lost.

_At the same time I can't let them win and that means I have to do everything I can to sabotage their campaigns!_ she thought with resolve born of her desire to have Xander all to herself.

With that in mind she looked about the courtyard to survey the target area and the potential targets for her to strike at. There seemed to her to be three or four main things that the candidates for homecoming queen were using in order to gain the favor of their classmates. The first was the obvious speaking to them with promises made and possibilities suggested if they won. If she wished to ruin those efforts, then she had to make it harder for the Amazons to get close enough to the students to speak with them. It couldn't be something obvious enough to be tied to her but it had to be effective. Perhaps a foul smell she could plant on them that would make it impossible for them to get close to anyone without driving them away. It would have to be something that the Amazons wouldn't pick up on themselves but everyone around them would have no trouble smelling. Not impossible, given what was sometimes required of a shinobi, but she'd need time to prepare it and then select the best way to dump it on them.

The second common method was food that was being offered to just about anyone that the candidates got close to. No doubt the food came with a request to vote for them at the homecoming dance. With this, one of her options was to make something so delicious that no one even noticed what the Amazons were offering, much less thought to give them a vote. The only problem with that course of action was the simple fact that she couldn't cook to save her life since she'd always figured she'd be able to get someone else to do it. Sure, she could make simple snacks but nothing that was good enough to surpass what she was seeing being handed out in the school courtyard below. That meant if she couldn't keep the students away from the Amazon's with her food, she'd just have to make their food horribly repugnant. A laxative inserted here, some small bit of food poisoning there and maybe substituting an ingredient for something similar looking but that will ruin whatever was being made. Any of these options would make people go green at the very thought of eating something that those bitches had made.

The final thing that was occurring down below was the handing out and hanging posters as well as flyers that made them look good somehow. Fortunately for her it only took a minute to devise an appropriate method of ruining the chances of the Amazons to win the Homecoming queen contest. Indeed, as the idea continued to evolve in her mind, she couldn't help but smile a malicious smile as she pictured the reactions that the two tramps would have. All she needed was a bit of time back at her team's HQ and her foes would be the laughing stock of the entire high school!

With her plans made and her resolve formed, she leapt from her hiding spot on the roof of the school and began to make her way back to her home here in Sunnydale.

She had a lot to do before tomorrow!

_**Xander's POV, The Next Day, Lunch Hour**_

_I really don't get what the big deal is with this whole Homecoming queen thing, _he thought, looking about the area, unable to find a single spot that didn't have something to do with the competition. _Sure, it's a chance to become Ms. Popular for a couple of months but there's no real point since everything goes back to normal later._

Walking out into the courtyard, he could see that the entire area had been taken over by the candidates with posters, minions and food stands making finding a peaceful place difficult. In any case, it didn't matter to him and he had two very good reasons to avoid this area, but he needed to get to the library quick if he was going to catch G-Man before the Brit started his meeting with the Council. Ever since they'd managed to trick those old fools in the UK that his mother had been assigned to Sunnydale for a mission before Giles, the Watcher's superiors had been demanding weekly status reports. Those reports could take up to two hours to finish, with the nitpicking the old men did of every little fact and every statement that Buffy's Watcher made. It was clear that they were just looking for an excuse to push him out so that they could assign someone more in line with their way of thinking to be Buffy's Watcher.

That wasn't going to happen, not on his watch.

If they managed to get Giles kicked out on trumped up charges, he'd threaten to block the Watcher's Council entirely from the Hellmouth. He'd offer both Buffy and Faith a place with Konoha if they didn't want to continue being tools of the Council. If those old fossils wanted to keep their presence on the Hellmouth, they'd have no choice but to back off. True, there might be some sort clause or rule in the treaty between Konoha and the Council forbidding a Slayer or a potential Slayer from being accepted by a hidden village but he didn't care. He wasn't talking about taking over control of the Slayer line. All he wanted to do was keep his friends and loved ones safe from those that would abuse or manipulate them without caring one whit about their wellbeing.

He'd do whatever it took to keep the people he cared about safe from harm.

He was about halfway across the courtyard of the school when two sets of eyes fell upon him that he'd hoped would remain oblivious to his presence just this once.

"Xander-sama!" came a cry from his right.

"Darling!" came a voice from the left.

_Dammit! They saw me!_ he thought as he quickly began to look about for a way to escape that didn't involve using a jutsu.

He'd learned yesterday that both Perfume and Lotion had thrown their hats in the ring to become Homecoming queen and he was hit with a double dose of dread. The first was the simple fact that the duo would likely go to crazy lengths to win and because the whole purpose of them even trying to win was likely to score points with him. Naturally he couldn't care less if they won or not and it certainly wouldn't affect his position when it came to their ridiculous marriage custom. It wasn't that he didn't see their point of view from his position but he was an American first and a citizen of Konoha second. Neither location would approve of a law where if a woman was beat in battle by a man, she had to marry him no matter what or be seriously shamed. Therefore he was determined to show all three Amazons that, no matter what they thought, he wasn't going to follow their laws just because they wanted him to.

The only laws he would follow were those he believed in.

As they closed to just outside arms reach, he had to close his eyes and sigh since, even with his best efforts, he'd been unable to find a way out that wouldn't cause a commotion. Therefore he was helpless as the two buxom young ladies latched onto an arm, sealing his fate and leaving him unable to extricate himself. He could tell that they were putting more than a little strength into their grips in order to make sure he couldn't just shake them off and anything more than that would get the attention of everyone in the courtyard. News would almost certainly find its way back to Snyder and that would mean academic troubles, as well as issues at his old home when Tony Harris got word of it. The latter didn't bother him since he'd long since ceased to care what that drunken asshole thought of him but the former would get in the way of helping his friends.

_Guess I got no choice but to ride out this storm, _he thought as they began to pull him to where they'd set up a small stand for themselves.

"You have no idea how good it is to see you, Xander-sama," Lotion said with a slightly seductive smile. "We hardly ever get to see you outside of classes."

"Yes, you've been pretty elusive," Perfume agreed before letting go so she could pick up a plate of oddly formed buns he presumed they'd made. "Some might see that as being rude but I'd say you eating one of our pork buns and voting for one of us at the Homecoming dance would be a satisfactory apology. Right, Lotion?"

"Right," the brunette Amazon said with her grip still firm on his left arm.

Looking between the two of them, he supposed that if eating some of their cooking was enough to get them to let him go, then he guessed that he'd go ahead and do it. Using his free hand to take one of the buns off the plate, he had to admit that it didn't look too bad and the smell was **fairly** appetizing, so with a mental shrug he bit into it. The taste was certainly unique as he could feel the pork in his mouth, as well as the bread, but there was also something else mixed in that he couldn't quite put a name to. It was oddly slimy tasting and had some slight bitterness to it but overall it wasn't something that he'd have any trouble eating. With that in mind he wolfed down the rest of the bun and, with a slight licking of his fingers, he had to admit that it was rather tasty.

"I see that you liked our pork buns, Xander-kun," Lotion said before pulling his arm to her ample chest. "Just so you know, this is just something we managed to scratch together using stuff we had around the kitchen. Given a little preparation time and some choice ingredients from home, we could've made something truly delectable."

"That's… um… nice," he said, not sure how else to respond to her statement.

"Yes, it is. If it's **nice** things you're interested in, I know more than a few other things I think you'd like," Perfume said standing in front of him as she raised herself up onto her toes to bring her face closer to his. "Personally, though, you strike me as more of a naughty kind of guy."

_O-kay! Maybe a little taijutsu wouldn't be out of the question at this point! _he thought before he executed a move Anko-sensei had taught him for getting out of a grip like this.

"Well… I'm not sure how to take that… so… I'm just going to be on my way!" he declared before moving as quickly as he could through the crowds of the courtyard before entering the school.

Once he was inside, he took a quick look back the way he'd come and was thankful to see that the two Amazons hadn't followed him. Taking a deep breath to calm himself down, he pushed himself off the wall he'd been leaning against and began to resume his earlier course to the library.

That was when he first felt a twinge of something in his stomach.

At first he brushed it off as his body getting used to unfamiliar food but, as the minutes ticked by, the twinge grew into a cramp and then an awful feeling of nausea appeared. Knowing what'd happen next all too well from the times when he was young and he'd tried to cook for himself, he rushed to the nearest men's room and dove into the first vacant stall he could find. It was a good thing he acted with such haste since the nausea reached its peak, causing him to throw up right into the toilet. Fortunately he hadn't had a lot to eat in the last couple of hours so it didn't take long for his stomach to empty itself but it did mentally make him promise not to eat anything else made by either Lotion or Perfume. True, he had no concrete proof that it was their pork buns that was causing him to feel like shit but, considering he'd been fine up until he ate one, he couldn't say they weren't at least a contributing factor.

Before he could think further, he felt a sensation that told him he was about to have business coming out of the other end. As he endured the discomfort of what came next, he hoped that his body would be settled enough by the time the next class started.

He SO didn't want to have to tell anyone that his body had to seriously unload everything in the bathroom.

_**Deo's POV, The Night of the Prom, Forty-Five Minutes Before the Event**_

_Just as I thought! _she thought as she finished examining one of the left over pork buns her daughter had taken to school for her campaign.

It had only been two days ago but she still remembered how upset her two charges had been returning from school that day. When she'd asked them what was wrong, they'd told her that every person who'd eaten one of their pork buns had gotten ill and had fled to the nearest bathroom within an hour of eating. At first she'd written off the entire thing as something unique to the people or perhaps something they'd had for breakfast. After all, she'd personally inspected each ingredient to ensure freshness and had supervised both Perfume and her daughter when they'd been making the buns.

Everything had been perfect.

What had made that day a failure was not so much the fact that other students had gotten ill but the fact that her future son-in-law had also gotten sick enough to be stuck in the bathroom for an hour. This, she knew, damaged their standing with the head of the Uchiha clan but she'd been confident that the young ladies could overcome that by focusing more on the flyers they'd be handing out and speaking with key students to gain their support. The duo had worked hard on their posters and flyers so that they showed an equal mix of sex appeal and respectability. They'd even spent some time getting the measure of the student body to find out who had the most influence over the others and who were barely noticed. With this sort of research they'd attacked the rest of their campaign with dedication but just as they'd begun to make some progress the unforeseeable happened.

Without warning, all of their posters had suddenly burst into flame.

This time she'd known it was sabotage because the flames had been far too controlled to be accidental. Instead of a random burn pattern one might expect from someone simply sneaking up to them and lighting a match, the flames had appeared in such a way so as to leave words and slanderous alterations on the posters. Neither Lotion or Perfume recalled seeing anyone suspicious around the posters prior to the flames appearing but that didn't necessarily mean anything. The few times that they'd been witnessed to the event the area had been filled with students, making it impossible discern who might've been responsible. Therefore she'd cast suspicion on the other Homecoming queen candidates and so she'd considered each one in turn.

None of the normal girls were responsible since not one of them exhibited knowledge of anything outside of clothes, make-up, music or boys. That caused her to look towards Xander's friend Buffy Summers, who was also in the running for Homecoming queen, and his acquaintance Cordelia Chase. The first was a possibility, given the resources her Watcher provided and, while somewhat lacking in skill, it wasn't completely beyond the realm of possibility that she might be the culprit. However, given that none of the same incidents were happening to the other candidates, she had to consider the possibility that, whoever it was, had a personal beef with Perfume and Lotion. It took her a while to narrow down the possibilities but, fortunately, right at the end of classes, the perpetrator tipped her hand. It was when students whom her two young warriors had spoken to before with favorable results suddenly did an about face and acted as though they'd been seriously insulted. It was only after one of them said that Perfume had trash talked with him the day before that she received the clue she needed.

Perfume had been speaking with her on the other side of the school at the time. That meant that someone had managed to flawlessly impersonate the young Amazon to the point where your average person couldn't tell the difference.

The bitch behind it all could only have been Mishima Ayeka!

With that possibility in mind, she immediately examined the bun and quickly confirmed that there were traces of a substance that, if ingested, would definitely produce the symptoms Lotion described. The posters wouldn't have been a problem and would fit with the premise that the blonde ninja was purposefully trying to sabotage any attempts to gain further favor with Uchiha Xander. It was almost admirable but it still she was angry that the shinobi was trying to ruin her rivals rather than working hard to outdo them.

That was why they had chosen to take their dance preparations a little further than they'd intended.

It had originally been their intention to wear detailed cheongsam dresses that clung to their forms and had a hole on the upper half of the chest area to offer a little peek at their cleavage. It was both tasteful and refined but also hinted at what young Xander could have if only he ceased resisting them. Now… now they had to take things to the next level if they wanted to undo the damage the ninja had done.

The first thing they'd done was modify the dresses to turn them into mini-cheongsams, thus allowing for far more leg to be shown. They had to be careful so that, if the girls had to bend over, they wouldn't wind up showing off their toned rear ends to anyone within eyesight. Once satisfied with the length of the dresses, they changed the shape of the opening in the chest area so that, instead of a round circle, it was changed to a rectangular gap stretching from the collarbone to the waist. She'd had to sew on something to keep the front of the dress from falling too far away from their bodies but a few strategically placed transparent plastic threads did the job nicely. One could see them if they looked carefully enough but otherwise they were completely invisible and wouldn't ruin the allure that'd come with not only the exposed skin but the fact that neither of them would be wearing a bra.

No man would be able to miss the allure of her two charges with those dresses on.

Hearing a noise, she turned towards the hallway that led to the bedrooms and what she saw only caused her to smile at the inevitable victory that would be achieved later on in the night. Posing before her was not only her daughter Lotion but also her future daughter-in-law clad in the dresses they had brought with them from home and modified to achieve maximum effect on their desired target. They did have some make-up on but only to accentuate their already stunning facial features since any more would make them look like a pair of red district streetwalkers.

"Very stunning, ladies!" she complimented before circling them so that she could examine their outfits from all angles. "So, what did you decide on: lace or silk?"

"Lace, of course," Perfume replied with a smile on her face. "To reveal yet keep hidden is the core of seduction."

"Silk. It's like a second skin and won't get him distracted trying to figure out what's cloth and what's me," her daughter replied, sounding quite confident in her decision.

Sound decisions.

"Good. Now remember, while this night is important, you must be careful not to move too quickly," she said seriously as she came to a stop in front of them. "A skilled warrior is patient and a successful warrior knows to be aware of a target's mental state before doing anything."

"Hai!" both of the girls said before bowing respectfully to her.

"Now you'd best be on your way," she said as she looked at the clock hanging on the wall. "While his shinobi partner might be the only one showing interest in him at the moment, there's no guarantee that that'll last forever. Make sure that you get there early enough so that when he arrives you can make it clear to all the others whose future husband he's going to be."

"The others won't stand a chance!" Lotion declared with confidence.

"Xander-sama won't know what hit him!" Perfume said, resolve as strong as steel.

With that the two of them left and she was left with only one last thing to do in order to give her charges the space they needed. Walking over to the phone, she dialed the number she'd managed to gain during a little covert surveillance on her future son-in-law. Her idea probably wouldn't work out, the woman she planned on speaking with being somewhat entertained by the Uchiha's predicament, but perhaps she'd be annoyed enough at the tactics used by Ayeka to do something.

"Hello?" came a tomboyish voice after the phone was picked up on the other end.

"Anko-san? I thought you might want to know what your blonde student has been up to lately," she said with a polite voice. "While I'll admit that it's the shinobi way to strike covertly, I think you'll agree that getting found out along with hitting a friendly isn't exactly grounds for a stellar score. What do you think?"

_**The Front of Sunnydale High School, Later, Willow's POV**_

"Where could Xander be!?" Buffy exclaimed before looking at her watch, "We were supposed to meet here ten minutes ago."

"He'll be here, Buffy. You know he lives outside of town, so even if he goes all ninja-y it'll take time to get here especially if he wants to keep his tuxedo in decent enough shape," she said, trying to defend her friend's tardiness. "After all it wouldn't be very good for him if he got here on time only for his clothes to be all rumpled and dirty."

"I guess but I still wish he'd hurry up," the blonde Slayer said with grudging acceptance.

Feeling Oz wrap an arm around her shoulders, she had to mentally agree that she would really like it if her best friend could arrive soon. She had an entire romantic evening planned out with her boyfriend and she really wanted to start sooner rather than later. They'd planned on staying at the dance just long enough to see if Buffy or Cordelia won the Homecoming queen crown then they'd leave to have a private romantic date afterwards. However she didn't wanted to experience the Homecoming of their final year at Sunnydale High School without her best friend, so she would wait a little while longer before.

Another ten minutes, at least, but after that Xander would just have to find them inside.

Fortunately it only took about six before she saw a taxi stop in front of the school and her best friend since pre-school step out clad in quite the nice tuxedo. What puzzled her a bit was the fact that he was alone. When people had first started talking about the dance, she'd been convinced that Ayeka would find some way to make herself Xander's guest and date for the night, even though she wasn't a student. Indeed, the few times she'd talked to him about it, he'd implied that he likely would bring her since it'd be better than coming alone and his prospects for a date other than the blonde didn't exist. Oh, he made it out to sound like he was only grudgingly doing it but she could see that he'd become quite fond of the young woman who was determined to become his wife. It wasn't quite at the point where he'd openly call her his girlfriend but she could tell that, unless something big happened to derail things, it'd only be a matter of time.

"About time you got here, Xan!" Buffy said, sounding happy yet a bit annoyed at his arrival. "What took you?"

"We had a minor SNAFU at HQ. You know how people got sick after eating some Amazon food and their posters spontaneously combusted?" Xander asked before patiently waiting for an answer from the two of them.

"Yeah. I just figured it was their lousy cooking and something Hellmouthy," she replied, recalling the discussion she'd had with Buffy after each incident.

"Good guesses but it turns out that Ayeka was behind it all." Xander had a bit of anger in his voice and, knowing why, she couldn't blame him. "She figured that Perfume and Lotion were planning on using the dance as a way to score points with me. Naturally she didn't want that to happen so she decided to sabotage the Amazons' Homecoming queen campaigns."

While she'd like to say that she was surprised that the blonde ninja would go that far, the truth of the matter was that, if she and Oz weren't a couple and she was still after Xander, she might've done the same thing. Still, she'd seen how sickly he'd been coming into class after eating one of the pork buns and she'd been standing less than five feet from one of Perfume's posters when it burst into flame. Therefore she could understand her best friend's anger.

"Turns out Lotion's mom called Anko-sensei just as we were getting ready and filled her in on the whole thing," Xander explained before beginning to walk towards the school. "As punishment, Ayeka's grounded for the next twenty-four hours."

"Why twenty-four hours?" Buffy asked, sounding a little unimpressed. "That's not all that long."

"It is when you know that while you're stuck in your room, two of your rivals will have the guy you're determined to marry all to themselves," he replied, revealing why being grounded would be a punishment for Ayeka.

The rivalry between Ayeka and the Amazons had been going on from the moment they'd arrived in Sunnydale and it'd only gotten more heated once the duo somehow became students. It even had some of the students buzzing since many of them couldn't understand how the guy they'd all labeled as a nobody somehow rated three hotties trying to wed and bed him. It had the jocks coming up with excuses as to why beautiful young ladies like Perfume and Lotion would be attracted to Xander while Cordy and her crowd gave the ninja a second glance, wondering if they'd missed something.

As they entered the school and began to make their way to the gym where the dance was taking place, they casually looked about and saw various other groups doing the same. She spotted Cordy hanging on the arm of the star of Sunnydale High's basketball team while the rest of the socialite's minions trailed behind her with their own dates. With a snort of contempt, she noted that all of them were part of the in crowd, with most of them being someone on note on one of the school's various sport's teams. With a bit more of an edge than she usually showed, she began imagining how each and every one of them would crash and burn when reality decided to slap them across the face. Either their money would run out, leaving them to fend for themselves, or some accident would happen, taking away their potential future in the area of professional sports.

"Claws in, Willow," Xander said quietly before blocking her view of the school's upper echelon. "Don't let them ruin tonight for you."

"He's right," Oz said with a comforting arm around her shoulders.

With this act, the bitter feelings she felt towards the social elite dispersed and she mentally agreed that the dance was far more important than the people who'd ridiculed her since her first day at school. She promised herself that, no matter what, she wouldn't let anyone ruin this night for her and her friends.

It didn't take them long to reach the gym and they could see that things were already in full swing with people both on the dance floor as well as near the table with all the refreshments. She spotted a few plates and bowls of food there as well but it was mostly stuff that you could nibble or snack on rather than the makings of a real meal. All in all, your typical set up for a dance with the only exception being the booth off to the side where students were already lining up in front of to place their vote for Homecoming queen. She, of course, would put in her vote as well, a vote for Buffy, but she'd wait until the last possible moment so she could possibly be the vote that tipped things in her friend's favor.

"Xander-sama!" came two voices in perfect synch, causing her to look towards the source.

There, almost jogging towards her friend, were the two Amazons whose degrading law told them that they had to marry the man who beat them. Looking at the skimpy dresses they were wearing, it was clear that they didn't have any modesty at all and only a loose concept of decency. The dresses they were wearing, if you could call them that rather than slightly large shirts, looked like they were a size or three too small and definitely revealed more than she thought they should. This was a school dance, after all, not a strip club… not that she knew what those were outside of a few vague statements, and there was a line you just didn't cross at events like this. The dresses looked like they'd tear apart under the strain of the Amazon's breathing too heavy for crying out loud! Obviously the two enemies of girl power thought that if they showed up in those that they'd be able to seduce Xander around to their way of thinking.

_Well, they better like surprises because there's no way Xander's falling for such an obvious move!_ she thought, glaring at the two Chinese girls that now stood three feet away.

Turning to her friend, she expected to see him annoyed and rolling his eyes at having to deal with yet another blatantly obvious effort to seduce him. After he did this, she believed he would proceed to point out their lack of original thinking before dismissing them in favor of getting a drink or something.

She did not expect to see him standing there looking at the duo with jaw hanging and eyes slightly glazed over with what was probably lust. The only good thing that could be said about him at the moment was that his eyes were looking at their entire appearance rather than just focusing on one part of their anatomy. Nevertheless, this could not be allowed to continue so with unexpected synchronicity both she and Buffy delivered assertive elbows to their male friend's ribs to bring him out of his perving state. When this happened, he reflexively looked at her with a look that implied 'what did you do that for?' but she swiftly replied with one that conveyed to him 'you were being perverted pig', causing a look of concession and apology.

It would do for now but if he ever acted like that again, she'd require much more than that, like teaching her at least one of his ninja techniques, perhaps.

Not exactly likely but a girl could dream, couldn't she?

_**Later, Xander's POV**_

_They're not here to marry me. They're here to KILL ME! _he thought as he continued to try and keep his distance from the warrior woman who seemed determined to make him think with his little head.

It had only been an hour since he'd walked into the gym with the rest of the Scooby gang but it felt like it'd been a week, given how hard he'd had to work to hang onto his reason and moral code. It hadn't been so bad in the beginning since both Buffy and Willow were determined to act as barriers against the Amazon's seductive sorties. After twenty-five minutes, though, his two friends had become confident enough that their message had gotten through to their foes that they felt it was okay to leave him by his lonesome.

They seriously underestimated Perfume and Lotion.

In truth, he'd been alone for a total of five minutes before Lotion had appeared next to him while he was next to the refreshments table, claiming that she'd been thirsty. The problem with that had been that he'd never seen anyone who'd been thirsty with such a lustful look on their faces and, as a stray thought, he'd come to the conclusion that what the warrior wanted would only make her thirst worse. He'd tried to slink away from her since he didn't trust his teenage hormones not to make him say or do something that'd make the situation worse but he'd only wound up bumping into Perfume. In fact, he'd bumped into her hard enough to cause her to lose her balance and, out of reflex alone, he'd reached out and steadied her. Naturally, once he'd realized who he was dealing with, he released her and began looking for an escape route that would prevent immediate pursuit.

He knew that there were guys about the room wondering why he was so desperate to get away from two hotties like the Amazons and, if this'd been happening to someone else, he'd likely be wondering the same thing. However there were certain facts that only one in this precise situation were properly cognizant of and it was because of them that he knew he couldn't surrender to his lower desires. The first and most obvious one was the fact that two of his dearest friends would **NOT** be impressed with him if he fell for the duo. Both Willow and Buffy had made it clear that they didn't approve of the customs that the two foreign female followed and he was sure that if showed any endorsement of those customs, he'd be read the riot act in surround sound soon after. The second fact was one known only to the Scoobies in the form of his blonde teammate from Konoha, who had made her romantic intentions towards him clear from day one. While he couldn't say precisely where his feelings were in regards to her, they were no longer those one would find between two teammates and that was saying something. Nevertheless, given what he'd seen of the Mishima girl's skills back in Konoha, as well as in Sunnydale, he knew he'd be in for painful punishments indeed if he acted carelessly.

Some would think that letting his romantic decisions be dictated to him by his friends and teammates meant he had no backbone but he'd be quick to set them straight on that point. He was fully capable of defying the wishes of his friends and teammates when he felt strongly enough about something. The only reason why he didn't put all the ladies in his life in their place and let them know precisely where he intended to go with his future was the simple fact that he didn't have a real plan for the future, aside from the bare basics. He wanted to become as skilled a ninja as he could, restore his clan to its former glory and pound enough sense into Sasuke's revenge-addled skull to bring him back to Konoha. While it was all well and good to have goals, things tended to sound less impressive when the person who set them doesn't have much in the way of plans made for reaching them. Become a skilled ninja? Beyond training hard and learning new jutsu whenever possible, he had no idea how to grow into a shinobi that'd be respected by his allies and feared by his enemies. Restoring his clan to its former glory? He had a hard enough time just managing the resources he had as Xander Harris! He didn't have the first clue how best to go about restoring a clan that had been gone from hundreds to just three, and two of those being criminals. That didn't even take into account the various properties, resources or bank accounts that were now his to do with as he would.

As for knocking some sense into his idiot cousin, he was more confident of his plan to train hard enough to beat Sasuke when they next met but he had no idea what he should focus his time learning. There were literally hundreds of jutsu and no way for anyone to learn them all before they died of old age, making it very unlikely that he'd be able to master them all within two and a half years. It'd help if he has some idea what Sasuke would be learning but he somehow doubted that old Snake Face would oblige him by handing over a copy of his lesson plan.

Amidst all this uncertainty and lack of structured plans, was it any wonder that he was flying by the seat of his pants on most things, including the minefield that was romance. Plus he'd bet even money that the majority of the students at Sunnydale High School didn't have anything better laid out for their futures than him.

Taking all this information into account, it made perfect sense to retreat from a situation where you lacked enough info to make a rational decision. That was the reason he'd barely been able to escape them before and why he was constantly changing his position within the gym in order to counter their efforts to corner him. It wasn't easy since they were no slouches in the tactics department, as evidenced by the way they used the concentrations of students to their advantage whenever they could. He, of course, was doing the same by purposefully putting groups of horny jocks and guys who considered themselves one of the gods of Sunnydale High School in their way. It was his hope that one of the guys would say or do something stupid enough to provoke either Lotion or Perfume to punch them out. This would prompt Snyder to kick them out of the event, inadvertently doing him a favor in the process but thus far no male member of the in crowd had obliged him.

In the end all his efforts came to naught as he soon found himself cornered and left with no options that weren't flashy attention-getting ninjutsu. He almost considered doing it on the off chance that Sunnydale Denial Syndrome might convince those not in the know to repress or rationalize away what they saw him do. However he knew he could not take the chance since news of his actions would inevitably reach Anko-sensei, leading to a lecture when he got back to HQ. She wouldn't be too harsh about it but, with that ANBU sneaking around, he might report the incident to Hokage-sama and the old farts on the village council. He knew that, while Tsunade-sama might be willing to show him some leniency, the old folks who 'advised' her would be quick to come down hard on him. He was sure that they were just waiting for a chance to take back all that had been signed over to him once he'd been recognized as the new head of the Uchiha clan.

Thus he resigned himself to having to deal with the attentions of two determined young Amazon women.

"That was quite an interesting chase you led us on, Xander-sama, but now it is done." Lotion latched onto his left arm, "We have won."

"Indeed. Now why don't we try and enjoy this dance rather than waste it fighting one another." Perfume said as she grabbed a hold of the right arm.

Looking at the two of them, he couldn't help but wonder if all this resistance was really worth it. Sure, he knew that Buffy, Willow and Ayeka would pitch a fit if they saw him actually going along with the Amazons but, quite frankly, their efforts were beginning to wear him out. He'd been running, evading and extricating himself from them almost from the day they'd arrived. While it was not have been a twenty-four hours a day or seven days a week deal, it still happened frequently enough that he had to devote serious amounts of time to think up new ways of dealing with them. Add to that the fact that it couldn't be helping his stress levels any and he figured that if he didn't find some easier way to deal with the matter, he'd probably wind up in the hospital somehow.

"Fine, just don't get any ideas. I'm only doing this because it isn't worth the hassle to keep avoiding you two all night," he said, trying to make it clear he was relenting under duress.

"Of course, Xander-sama," Perfume said as though causing him trouble was the furthest thing from her mind.

"We wouldn't dream of causing you any trouble," Lotion declared before a steamy look entered her gaze. "After all, there are so many better dreams to be had than those of trouble."

_I must have offended a __**LOT**__ of gods and goddesses in a past life to earn this kind of trouble!_ he thought as he tried to divert the conversation to something more normal.

He started with how Snyder had decided to change the venue of the Homecoming dance to the gym rather than renting the Bronze because the troll found out it'd be cheaper.

From there the topics got progressively more obscure.

_**A Week and a Half Later, Team Anko HQ, Faith's POV**_

"SonuvaBITCH! Fuck!" she exclaimed before kicking the misshapen clone of hers in the stomach, causing it to disappear in a puff of smoke.

"Calm down, Faith! You'll get the hang of it soon enough," Xan said from his place ten feet away. "You've already managed to get generating chakra down and a helluva lot faster than I'd thought. Just take a deep breath and calm down."

For a moment she considered telling him to go fuck himself but then she reminded herself of what he was doing, so instead she did what he asked. Closing her eyes, she slowly took in air then let it out just as slow in order to let her frustration bleed off her body into the air around her. It wasn't easy to do since she was such a wild girl but she really wanted to get what Xander was trying to teach her. A minute later she figured she was calm enough to try again and so executed the hand seals she'd been taught by her teacher.

_Ram, snake and tiger!_ She thought with each seal she formed, "Bunshin no Jutsu!"

When she'd asked why she had to do such crazy stuff with her hands, Xander had told her that it was necessary in order to manipulate the energy she was making into doing what she wanted it to. At first she hadn't wanted to do something so weird but, when he'd asked her how she planned on performing the moves without them, she'd been unable to come up with an answer. Now, a couple of days later, they were just another step in performing the moves so she didn't mind.

She felt the energy flow within her in the manner the seals she'd formed directed it to go and then, when a puff of smoke that always heralded one of her failures appeared, she waited to see the results of her labor. It only took seconds for the smoke to disperse and she almost lost the concentration she'd used in doing the technique. Standing before her was an exact copy of her own body without any of the deformities that had been in her past attempts. Aside from the slightly glassy look in the eyes, it was perfect and this brought out a feeling of exhilaration at what she'd just managed to perform.

"YES! That is the **SHIT**!" she exclaimed as a truly triumphant smile exploded across her face.

Doing a little victory dance and not caring how she looked, she felt as though she'd managed to pass a big test in her training. Seeing her clone disappear in a puff of smoke as her concentration finally deteriorated, she turned to her instructor to see a satisfied smile on his face. It was a smile she'd never seen on a guy's face until recently and she found that she liked it more than the other kinds she'd been exposed to.

In the past, the smiles she'd seen were cruel smiles, slimy smiles and the ones she hated the most the sleazy smiles on the faces of the men who saw her as nothing but a set of breasts to grope and a trio of holes to shove their cocks in. The times she'd encountered that last type rarely ended well for her and, almost as soon as that thought manifested in her mind, she suppressed it before the next link in the chain of memories appeared. She didn't want this awesome feeling of success to be tainted with shit from the past.

Whatever the past troubles she'd gone through, what she was experiencing in the now was truly wicked and now that she could make a copy of herself, she wanted to move to the next lesson.

"What's next, teach?" she asked, desiring to move onto the next lesson.

"Not so fast. I want you to spend the next half hour or so practicing the technique," Xander said, using the universal sign for 'slow down'. "I want to make sure that you can use the move at the drop of the hat. Aim for ten out of ten successes."

"But I just did it! Let's move onto something else." she protested, wanting to move onto the next wicked move.

"Uh-uh. You managed to do it once and only once out of a total of twenty-five tries," he said, shaking his head. "Do you really want to go through twenty-four failures in the middle of a fight before you finally get it right?"

Looking at it like that, she could understand his point of view and had to admit that it'd suck pretty bad if she screwed up right when she needed the clone in a pinch. It was just like going out vamp hunting but finding yourself short a bottle of holy water or stake right when you needed one. If she needed a clone as a distraction and put out one of those twisted freak failures, she'd not only get killed but would be humiliated.

"No," she replied before she began forming the hand seals again.

Minutes passed as she performed the clone technique over and over again but, by the fifteenth minute, she decided that she'd try to get him to spill a bit more about where he learned all this martial arts stuff.

"So where'd you learn these moves?" she asked after her thirteenth successful execution of the technique. "Somehow I don't think the local karate club teaches stuff like this."

Seconds passed and she thought that maybe he wasn't going to answer but, when he looked her in the eye, she found out the reverse was the case.

"About a year ago a chaos mage came to town looking to have a bit of fun," he started as his eyes took on a bit of nostalgia. "He cast a spell that would cause anyone who bought something from his costume store to become what they dressed up as. I went out dressed as a ninja from a hidden village and, after the spell broke, I found out that a lot of what ninja me knew and could do had stuck. Naturally, seeing a new way to help my friends, I trained every chance I got.

"It was when things took a turn for the bad that I found out that I needed to up my game big time if I wanted to protect the people important to me." Traces of pain entered his voice, "Assassins from the Order of Taraka came to town gunning for me and, to make things worse, they could do the same ninja-y things I could, except they could do them better. If it wasn't for my mother showing up, I would've been killed."

"Your mom? You mean she could do ninja stuff too!?" she asked, surprised at this little bit of news.

"Yeah. Turns out she was sent to the Hellmouth by her bosses to keep tabs on it and brought me along for the ride when I was a baby" He sounded as though he'd stop explaining any minute due to the memories, "When she showed up at the school, we managed to turn things around and beat them but… my mom… died taking a hit meant for me."

This left her speechless as she realized how hard it must be for Xander to talk about this and how painful the memory of that night was for him. Her own relationship with her mother wasn't anywhere near as rosy but she'd watched enough TV shows and movies to get the general gist of how the whole mother-children thing was supposed to go. To lose her like that must've been pretty terrible and, within her heart, she felt sympathy for him.

"After her funeral here, I decided that I'd take her back to her family," he said, continuing to answer her question. "When I got there I found out that they knew ninja stuff as well. I spent the summer learning what I could and then about a week before I came back they asked me to take up my mom's job with Anko and the others. The rest is history."

There wasn't much she could say to all that but there is a question that her mind came up with that she wanted an answer to. "Why did you tell me that?"

"What do you mean? You asked me a question and I answered," he replied, sounding confused as to why she'd ask such a question.

"That's not what I mean!" she said, a little annoyed that he wasn't getting what she was asking. "I mean, why did you tell me about what happened with your mom? It's obvious it's a pretty shitty memory."

"It is. Before Halloween I always thought she was this doormat for my step-father, Tony. He'd treat her like shit and she'd just take it. She could've had him arrested any number of times but didn't. When I found out she used to be a ninja, I thought that she'd taken it because she needed to keep her cover. When I saw her in all her ninja glory, all the shit I'd been put through seemed to be worth it.

"As for why I'm telling you this? Maybe because I figured you'd hear the story sooner or later. Maybe because I think there shouldn't be secrets between teacher and student. I'll let you decide."

He said no more, so she returned to her training.

Thinking over what he'd told her and his response to her questions, she found that she couldn't really figure the guy out and didn't know which truth to believe. In the end she chose to trust his words for the time being, until she found something to tip the scales one way or another. If it turned out that the latter, that earned Xander major points with her since she had never been shown trust like that before save from her Watcher, D.

Combined with the fact that he was teaching her some of his own slick moves, she thought that maybe, just maybe, she had found a friend among the Scoobies.

Someone she could trust.

_**Two Days Later, The Hallways of Sunnydale High School, Buffy's POV**_

"And then I was being chased by an improperly filled-in answer bubble screaming 'none of the above!'" she explained as she told the rest of the gang about her nightmare involving the SAT test.

She was only being partially humorous with this since she really did have concerns about the whole thing but humor was better than worrying, so she tried to keep her mind on the funny rather than the frightening. After all, if she let herself think more on the serious side of things, she'd have to acknowledge what the tests stood for and, when it came to her future, she preferred to live in the moment. Despite the fact that she'd already broken past the average life expectancy for a Slayer, she still believed that she was pretty much destined for an early grave. Even if she trained as hard as she could and followed the Watcher's Council's playbook to the letter, all it'd take would be a smart vamp or a lucky demon to kill her.

_Yep! Better to stick with the haha instead of the doom'n'gloom,_ she thought as she continued to walk with her friends.

"Wow. I hope that wasn't one of your prophecy dreams." Willow said in a similar tone.

This warranted a 'do not even joke about that' look because, knowing the wigginess that the Hellmouth was capable of, it stood a better chance of happening here than anywhere else in the universe.

"Probably not," Willow said, realizing her mistake and immediately retracting her statement.

"Hey, you know, I took it last year. I could help you get ready. There's this whole trick to antonyms, but... this isn't the place." Oz said before a look from her discouraged further talk of SATs.

She knew Giles would get on her case big time if he were there, just like he'd been last night, telling her how her score on the tests would determine what colleges and universities she could attend. He just didn't understand how things looked from her perspective. Her Watcher could read all the books he wanted but there was no way he could understand things from the Slayer's perspective.

"Oz is the highest-scoring person ever to fail to graduate." Willow stated completely understanding the need for funnies at the moment.

"Isn't she cute when she's proud?" she asked Oz with an amused smile.

"She's always cute," Oz said as though it were the one true fact of the universe.

It was probably the one truth of his universe and she supposed that was enough.

"You know what? We should all get together and work on it tonight." Willow said, being her usual perky self when it came to anything academic.

"I suddenly feel my carefree spirit taking a nosedive," she stated, realizing that unless she truly wanted to hurt her gal pal's feelings, she was book bound again tonight.

"As much fun as it'd be to study all those fun facts, I'm gonna have to bow out from that," Xander said with his usual brand of humor.

"What? Why?" Willow asked, looking completely surprised that her best bud wouldn't join her in academic preparation.

"Well, as much fun as it might be reading all that stuff mixed with some tasty snacks, I just don't think I'm college bound after graduation," he replied before taking a quick look around the immediate area. "I'm pretty much going to be splitting my time between getting my Mom's clan running again and doing work for Tsunade, so fitting in college time isn't going to be possible."

She could see that her red haired friend wasn't entirely happy with what had been said but couldn't disagree with it, either. As for her, she'd prefer it if her fellow Scooby found a less dangerous thing to do after high school but she realized how important all his ninja stuff was to him. Being a ninja connected him to his mother. Considering everything that happened that night out in the courtyard, she could understand why he'd chosen to follow in her footsteps. She just hoped that he took enough time out from his ninja stuff to be a normal teenager.

It was as she thought about this that the group came upon a sight that was both odd and interesting at the same time. Only a couple feet away was a table with boxes of what looked like chocolate bars but, while she had as much a sweet tooth as anyone else, there was one thing that stopped her from approaching the table; standing in front of it with a clipboard in hand was none other than Principle Snyder.

Sensing another 'volunteer' activity in the making, she prepared to do something to direct her friends away from the area but Willow saw it and made a move first.

"Ooh, candy bars! Lots of 'em!" Willow exclaimed as she looked at the mound of dark sweetness.

With this done, Snyder immediately locked his 'I hate you' crosshairs on them and she knew that escape would not be possible without paying a serious detention bill. Considering that she didn't think detention was fun by **anyone's** definition, she resigned herself to whatever task the impotent little troll decided to dump on them this time.

Watching as the angry little man held out a box to Xander, she decided to see how her friend would take the gesture.

"Principal Snyder, thank you!" Xander said with mock gratitude. "You weren't visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past by any chance?"

"It's band candy," Snyder replied, clearly not possessing a sense of humor.

"Let's hear it for the band, huh? Very generous," she said, trying to ride the funny train a little while longer.

"You will sell it to raise money for the marching band. They need new uniforms." Snyder declared making it clear that they didn't have any say in the matter.

"Yeah. Those tall, fuzzy hats ain't cheap, huh?" Xander asked rhetorically, a look in his eyes implying he was just trying to needle the school warden in front of them.

"But they go with everything," Oz said, apparently joining in though with his stoic face it was hard to tell if he was trying to be funny or not.

_Might as well make one bid for freedom just for the hell of it,_ she thought. "I'm sure we love the idea of going all Willy Loman, but we're not in the band."

"And if I'd handed you a trombone, that would've been a problem, Summers," Snyder said before taking another box and shoving it into her hands. "It's candy. Sell it."

Before she could say anything else, the arrogant asshole walked off, no doubt to torment someone else just because he could. It was times like these that she seriously wondered who it was that thought that Snyder was the right person to replace Principal Flutie. If she ever got a name, she would personally be visiting that person and reading them the riot act, as well as pointing out all the better candidates that could have been given the job.

Considering that there were over six billion of them, she was fairly sure she would've been happy with just about anyone else.

"Well, it looks like we've got some selling to do," Xander said, looking down at his box of candy bars. "Fortunately I happen to know of at least one person with a sweet tooth who just might buy the entire box off of me."

"Xander I don't think Principal Snyder meant for you to buy them," Willow pointed out, only doing so out of obligation as official rule follower rather than any personal objection.

"Who said anything about me?" Xander asked rhetorically. "I was talking about Anko-sensei. True, her favorites are more in the area of sweet bean soup and dango but I'm pretty sure I can prod her into buying at least some."

Thinking about the people she knew who she might be able to convince to buy a few, she immediately thought about her mom and maybe Giles if she laid on the whole 'you would be doing me a HUGE favor' thing a bit thick. If she could at least come back with one empty box, she figured that'd be enough to pacify the tiny dictator until the next time the idiot used his job to spread his misery around.

Thinking on the matter for a moment, she went back to the table and grabbed a second box, thinking that it'd probably take to get the lemon sucking bastard off her back.

_**The Woods North of Team Anko HQ, The Next Day, Inuzuka Hana's POV**_

"What kind of craptastic move was that, Wannabe?!" she yelled as she continued to follow behind her teammate and his avian partner. "You got something gumming up your ears or something!? A ninja with an animal partner isn't a group of two; it's a group of one. You're supposed to move perfectly in synch with each other. Now get back to five feet and KEEP IT THERE!"

Growling with annoyance at the job she'd gotten saddled with by Anko-sensei, she, for once, was glad that she hadn't managed to become a chuunin yet. If she had, she'd have been chosen to lead a group sooner or later and, as she was finding out now, leading was a helluva lot more aggravating than following. True, she wouldn't actually be expected to teach any genin fresh from the academy until she became jounin but, in her mind, leading a group as chuunin wasn't all that different except for the fact that the little brats actually listened to what their sensei told them.

Most of the time.

The reason she was not happy with her current situation was the fact that she was forced to start from scratch rather than after a couple of years of the duo getting to know one another. Among her clan, members were given their animal partners a few months after they enrolled in the academy and were expected to split their energy between their studies and getting in synch with their canine companions. The only reason her training with Xander and his living feather duster hadn't been completely horrible was the fact that their telepathic link helped minimize the lessons focused on communication. That only left learning how to maximize their ability to use that communication in the field, so that they both get the most out of their partner.

That is where things were getting a little tricky since no one in her entire family had ever partnered with anything other than a dog, so finding ways of getting Xander to work well with an eagle hawk was difficult. It was obvious that the bird wouldn't be able to do any damage with power, given its size, so she'd been focusing more on speed and aerial maneuverability. That was why she was forcing the two to stay within five feet of each other at all times. One of the basic tactics of any confrontation of numbers was to split up the enemy and then take them down individually. This was especially true of shinobi, who were only effective when their partner was available and, while the Inuzuka weren't helpless on their own, they did fight better with their partners by their side. In the case of Xander and Ava, though, she'd laid out an obstacle course for them to follow and the only thing they needed to do to pass was stay within five feet of each other at all times.

So far they hadn't even made it halfway to the finish line without exceeding that restriction at least once and it was beginning to piss her off.

She didn't know if it was just feather face's attitude problem or Xander not applying himself enough but she was not going to let either possibility mess up her timetable! When the duo once more veered too far away from one another, she gave out one more growl before turning to her three partners who, up until that point, had been laying down by her side.

"Girls, it's time for a little negative reinforcement." She said in a no nonsense sort of way, "Get to it!"

With barks of acknowledgement, her three partners darted off towards Wannabe and his partner, catching up to them quite easily. Once that happened they each took up a position six and a half feet from the duo, snapping at either one if they got so much as a foot past the limit she'd placed on them. She had to smile in a feral manner at how it was improving the performance of both the feather duster and her big time Uchiha partner. While she knew that her girls wouldn't actually bite either of them, nothing provided quite as much incentive to obey the rules as a trio of sharp, tooth-filled jaws. Thus it was with some satisfaction that she watched her 'students' succeed in reaching the finish line for the first time without straying further than five feet from each other.

_I'll probably have to ask the girls to do this a few more times before Wannabe'll be able to do it without help, but I doubt the girls will mind,_ she thought as the Uchiha walked back to her with Ava perched on his shoulder.

"What's with the Cujo routine?!" Xander asked, sounding a little upset.

"Just giving you and birdbrain a new reason to stick to what I told you," she replied without a hint of regret. "Seeing as how you managed to finally finish without screwing up, I'd say it worked."

To this Wannabe could only fume a bit and she knew it was because, despite the nature of her technique, it had indeed kept him and his avian ally within the prescribed proximity to each other. Sure, he'd probably bitch a little but, if he got too whiny, she'd just let Anko-sensei find out about it and she'd set him straight. She knew from experience that the one thing the jounin couldn't stand were shinobi who bitched about their training, especially when it got results. Anyone with a couple of B or C ranked missions under their belt knew that the life of a ninja wasn't for pussies and, if you couldn't take a little tough training, then you should turn in your forehead protector.

"Now get back at it!" she yelled at him, pointing back in the direction he came. "This time I want you to stay within three feet of each other the entire time."

"What? You can't be serious!" Wannabe said with moderate shock while no doubt mentally estimating how difficult it'd be with all the branches and vegetation he'd be encountering.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" she asked rhetorically, a slightly threatening look on her face.

When it looked like he might put up more of a fuss, she upped the threat level in her eyes and, without needing instruction, she heard her girls adding to the pressure being put on the Uchiha with their growls.

"Fine. Ava let's go," Xander said, glancing at the bird on his shoulder before breaking into a run for the start of the path she'd laid out for the training.

Judging from the noise the eagle hawk was making, it was clear that while beak brain wasn't going to complain to her about the situation, she had no trouble giving Wannabe an ear full. While she outwardly smiled at the sight, on the inside she knew that something would have to be done about Ava's attitude or else the eagle hawk and the Uchiha would never come together as a true team. It was one of the reasons all members of her clan were given their animal partners at such a young age: to build up trust and friendship. With both attributes, learning the movements of your partner became easy and thus you could interweave your own actions accordingly in order to achieve maximum effect. So long as Ava kept behaving spoiled brat of an extortionist, there'd be no true partnership between the duo and that was something that Anko-sensei would almost certainly consider a failure.

The question became how to smash the bird's delusions and get her to truly work with the Uchiha.

An hour later when her 'students' had successfully passed their proximity tests, she still had no real answer and so it was with an undecided mind that they all made their way back to their HQ to relax for a few hours before going out on patrol. While Xander went to his bedroom to catch a quick nap, she went to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat but, when she arrived, she saw a sight that was a little bit off. Sitting at the table, munching on one of the chocolate bars that the Uchiha had brought home from school, was Anko-sensei but she looked… different. For one thing, while her wearing casual clothes wasn't anything new, ninja didn't wear their combat clothes all the time after all, they seemed a little more laid back than usual. Not everything was buttoned or zippered up properly and, from certain angles, it was easier than it should be to tell whether or not the jounin was wearing underwear or not.

_Not that her usual combat clothes leave a lot to the imagination,_ she thought, remembering the mesh bodysuit that her sensei usually wore.

"So how'd the training go?" Anko-sensei asked, looking up from the magazine she was reading.

"Not as quickly as I'd like but they've managed to learn how to stick close on the run," she replied as she began taking things out of the cupboards. "Next I'll have them try to work as a team to complete an objective within a set time limit."

"Sounds good," Anko said before getting playful look on her face. "Though you know you might get him to work harder if you gave him a little… motivation."

A little wary at the look her sensei had on her face. "You got a suggestion?"

"Yep! Tell him that if can get it right in under three tries, you'll wear nothing but a bikini for the whole weekend!" Anko said with a look that made it impossible to tell whether she was anything other than amused by the idea.

"SENSEI!" she exclaimed, outright shocked at the incentive that her teacher had proposed she use.

"Hahahahahahahaha! You should see the look on your face!" Anko laughed for a bit, "You should really stop fighting it, ya know. Anyone who knows ya can tell you like Xander and I don't mean like a friend."

"Then 'anyone' needs to have a shitload of chakra shoved into them to knock them out of whatever genjutsu is making them think that I see that Uchiha as anything other than a pain in my ass!" she declared angrily, turning to the jounin with eyes that dared the woman to say otherwise.

"Heheheheheh. He might be a pain in your ass but I'm sure if you ask him nice, he'd make you feel all better," Anko-sensei said in sexily playful tone of voice.

"That's it!" she exclaimed stomping towards the door. "I'll come back when you've gotten your sanity back!"

With that she left the kitchen and instead went to her room to privately fume about her sensei using her for a bit of entertainment. She knew that her instructor in the shinobi arts had a kinky sense of humor sometimes but this seemed a little kinkier than usual. She could only presume that Anko was feeling particularly playful and kinky today for some reason and it was just her luck to be the first convenient target of the purple-haired woman's humor. She toyed for a moment with the idea of leaving her room to see how the others fared with their sensei's playful mood but decided against it since, if both she and Wannabe were in the same room with their superior, it would only end badly.

Plus it'd be near impossible to help Xander train if Anko said the wrong thing while both of them were in the room.

Completely impossible!


End file.
